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LOVE IN IDLENESS 


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LOVE IN IDLENESS 


A Bar Harbour Tale 



F. MARION CRAWFORD 

AUTHOR OF “ MR. ISAACS,” “ SARACINESCA,” 



MACMILLAN AND COMPANY 

AND 'LONDON 

1894 


All rights reserved 


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Copyright, 1894, 

By F. MARION CRAWFORD. 


• • 
« • 
0 • • 


NortoooU ^press : 

J. S. Cushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 
Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS. 


CHAPTER L 

“ I’m going to stay with the three 
Miss Miners at the Trehearnes’ place,” 
said Louis Lawrence, looking down 
into the blue water as he leaned over 
the rail of the Sappho, on the sunny 
side of the steamer. “ They’re taking 
care of Miss Trehearne while her 
mother is away at Karlsbad with Mr. 
Trehearne,” he added, in further ex- 
planation. 

‘‘Yes,” answered Professor Knowles, 
his companion. “Yes,” he repeated 
vaguely, a moment later. 

“ It’s fun for the three Mi.ss Miners, 
having such a place all to themselves 


2 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


for the summer,” continued young Law- 
rence. “It’s less amusing for Miss 
Trehearne, I daresay. I suppose I’m 
asked to enliven things. It can’t be 
exactly gay in their establishment.” 

“ I don’t know any of them,” ob- 
served the Professor, who was a Boston 
man. “ The probability is that I never 
shall. Who are the three Miss Miners, 
and who is Miss Trehearne ? ” 

“ Oh — you don’t know them ! ” Law- 
rence’s voice expressed his surprise that 
there should be any one who did not 
know the ladies in question. “ Well — 
they’re three old maids, you know.” 

“ Excuse me, I don’t know. Old 
maid is such a vague term. How old 
must a maid be, to be an old maid? ” 

“ Oh — it isn’t age that makes old 
maids. It’s the absence of youth. 
They’re born so.” 

“ A pleasing paradox,” remarked the 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


3 


Professor, his exaggerated jaw seeming 
to check the uneasy smile, as it at- 
tacked the gravity of his colourless thin 
lips. 

His head, in the full face view, was 
not too large for his body, which, in 
the two dimensions of length and 
breadth, was well proportioned. I'he 
absence of the third dimension, that is, 
of bodily thickness, was very apparent 
when he was seen sideways, while the 
exaggeration of the skull was also no- 
ticeable only in profile. The forehead 
and the long delicate jaw were unnatu- 
rally prominent ; the ear was set much 
too far back, and there was no devel- 
opment over the eyes, while the nose 
was small, thin, and sharp, as though 
cut out of letter paper. 

“ It’s not a paradox,” said Lawrence, 
whose respect for professorial state- 
ments was small. “The three Miss 


4 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


Miners were old maids before they 
were born. They’re not particularly 
old, except Cordelia. She must be 
over forty. Augusta is the youngest — 
about thirty-two, I should think. Then 
there’s the middle one — she’s Eliza- 
beth, you know — she’s no particular 
age. Cordelia must have been pretty 
— in a former state. Lots of brown 
hair and beautiful teeth. But she has 
the religious smile — what they put on 
when they sing hymns, don’t you know ? 
It’s chronic. Good teeth and resigna- 
tion did it. She’s good all through, 
but you get all through her so soon ! 
Elizabeth’s clever — comparatively. 
She’s brown, and round, and fat, and 
ugly. I’d like to paint her portrait. 
She’s really by far the most attractive. 
As for Augusta — ” 

“ Well ? What about Augusta ? ” en- 
quired the Professor, as Lawrence 
paused. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


5 


“ Oh — she’s awful ! She’s the ac- 
complished one.” 

“ I thought you said that the middle 
one — what’s her name ? — was the 
cleverest.” 

“Yes, but cleverness never goes 
with what they call accomplishments,” 
answered the young man. “ I’ve heard 
of great men playing the flute, but I 
never heard of anybody who was ‘ musi- 
cal ’ and came to anything — especially 
women. Fancy Cleopatra playing the 
piano — or Catherine the Great paint- 
ing a salad of wild flowers on a fan ! 
Can you? Or Semiramis sketching a 
lap dog on a cushion ! ” 

“ What very strange ideas you have ! ” 
observed the Professor, gravely. 

Lawrence did not say anything in 
reply, but looked out over the blue 
water at the dark green islands of the 
deep bay as the Sappho paddled along, 


6 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


beating up a wake of egg-white froth. 
He was glad that Professor Knowles 
was going over to the other side to 
dwell amongst the placid inhabitants 
of North East Harbour, where the joke 
dieth not, even at an advanced age ; 
where there are people who believe in 
Ruskin and swear by Herbert Spencer, 
who coin words ending in ‘ ism,’ and 
intellectually subsist on the ‘ologies’ — 
with the notable exception of theology. 
Lawrence had once sat at the Profes- 
sor’s feet, at Harvard, unwillingly, in- 
deed, but not without indirect profit. 
They had met to-day in the train, and 
it was not probable that they should 
meet again in the course of the sum- 
mer, unless they particularly sought 
one another’s society. 

They had nothing in common. Law- 
rence was an artist, or intended to be 
one, and had recently returned from 


V 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


7 


abroad, after spending three years in 
Paris. By parentage he belonged to 
New York. He had been christened 
Louis because his mother was of French 
extraction and had an uncle of that 
name, who might be expected to do 
something handsome for her son. Louis 
Lawrence was now about five and 
twenty years of age, was possessed of 
considerable talent, and of no particu- 
lar worldly goods. His most important 
and valuable possession, indeed, was 
his character, which showed itself in 
all he said and did. 

There is something problematic about 
the existence of a young artist who is 
in earnest, which alone is an attraction 
in the eyes of women. The odds are 
ten to one, of course, that he will never 
accomplish anything above the average, 
but that one-tenth chance is not to be 
despised, for it is the possibility of a 


8 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


well-earned celebrity, perhaps of great- 
ness. The one last step, out of ob- 
scurity into fame, is generally the only 
one of which the public knows anything, 
sees anything, or understands anything ; 
and no one can tell when, if ever, that 
one step may be taken. There is a 
constant interest in expecting it, and in 
knowing of its possibility, which lends 
the artist’s life a real charm in his own 
eyes and the eyes of others. And very 
often it turns out that the charm is all 
the life has to recommend it. 

The young man who had just given 
Professor Knowles an account of his 
hostesses was naturally inclined to be 
communicative, which is a weakness, 
though he was also frank, which is a 
virtue. He was a very slim young man, 
and might have been thought to be in 
delicate health, for he was pale and 
thin in the face. The features were 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


9 


long and finely chiselled, and the com- 
plexion was decidedly dark. . 'He would 
have looked well in a lace ruffle, with 
flowing curls. But his hair was short, 
and he wore rough grey clothes and 
an unobtrusive tie. 'Fhe highly arched 
black eyebrows gave his expression 
strength, but the very minute, dark 
mustache which shaded the upper lip 
was a little too evidently twisted and 
trained. That was the only outward 
sign of personal vanity, however, and 
was not an offensive one, though it gave 
him a foreign air which Professor 
Knowles disliked, but which the three 
Miss Miners thought charming. His 
manner pleased them, too ; for he was 
always just as civil to them as though 
they had been young and pretty and 
amusing, which is more than can be 
said of the majority of modern youths. 
His conversation occasionally shocked- 


lO 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


them, it is true ; but the shock was a 
mild one and agreeably applied, so that 
they were willing to undergo it fre- 
quently. 

Lawrence was not thinking of the 
Miss Miners as he watched the dark 
green islands. If he had thought of 
them at all during the last half-hour, it 
had been with a certain undefined grati- 
tude to them for being the means of 
allowing him to spend a fortnight in 
the society of Fanny Trehearne. 

Professor Knowles had not moved 
from his side during the long silence. 
Lawrence looked up and saw that he 
was still there, his extraordinary profile 
cut out against the cloudless sky. 

“ Will you smoke ? ” inquired Law- 
rence, offering him a cigarette. 

“ No, thank you — certainly not cigar- 
ettes,” answered the Professor, with a 
superior air. “ You were telling me 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


II 


all about the Miss Miners,” he contin- 
ued ; for though he knew none of 
them, he was of a curious disposition. 
“You spoke of a Miss Trehearne, I 
think.” 

“Yes,” answered the young man. 
“ Do you know her? ” 

“ Oh, no. It’s an unusual name, 
that’s all. Are they New York peo- 
ple? ” 

Lawrence smiled at the idea that 
any one should ask such a question. 

“ Yes, of course,” he answered. 
“New York — since the Flood.” 

“ And Miss Trehearne is the only 
daughter?” enquired the Professor, 
inquisitively. 

“She has a brother — Randolph,” 
replied Lawrence, rather shortly ; for 
he was suddenly aware that there was 
no particular reason why he should 
talk about the Trehearnes. 


12 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Of course, they’re relations of the 
Miners,” observed the Professor. 

“ That’s the reason why Miss Tre- 
hearne has them to stay with her. 
Excuse me — I can’t get 'a light in 
this wind.” 

Thereupon Lawrence turned away 
and got under the lee of the deck 
saloon, leaving the Professor to him- 
self. Having lighted his cigarette, 
the artist went forward and stood in 
the sharp head-breeze that seemed to 
blow through and through him, disin- 
fecting his whole being from the hot, 
close air of the train he had left half 
an hour earlier. 

Bar Harbour, in common speech, 
includes Frenchman’s Bay, the island 
of Mount Desert, and the other small 
islands lying near it, — an extensive 
tract of land and sea. As a matter of 
fact, the name belongs to the little 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


13 


harbour between Bar Island and Mount 
Desert, together with the village which 
has grown to be the centre of civ-' 
ilization, since the whole place has 
become fashionable. Earth, sky, and 
water are of the north, — hard, bright, 
and cold. In artists’ slang, there is no 
atmosphere. The dark green islands, 
as one looks at them, seem to be al- 
most before the foreground. The pic- 
ture is beautiful, and some people call 
it grand ; but it lacks depth. There is 
^ something fiercely successful about the 
colour of it, something brilliantly self- 
reliant. It suggests a certain type of 
handsome woman — of the kind that 
need neither repentance nor cosmetics, 
and are perfectly sure of the fact, 
whose virtue is too cold to be kind, 
and whose complexion is not shadowed 
by passion, nor softened by suffering, 
nor even washed pale with tears. Only 


14 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


the sea is eloquent. The deep-breath- 
ing tide runs forward to the feet of the 
over-perfect, heartless earth, to linger 
and plead love’s story while he may ; 
then sighing sadly, sweeps back unsatis- 
fied, baring his desolate bosom to her 
loveless scorn. 

The village, the chief centre, lies by 
the water’s edge, facing the islands 
which enclose the natural harbour. 
It was and is a fishing village, like 
many another on the coast. In the 
midst of it, vast wooden hotels, four 
times as high as the houses nearest to 
them, have sprung up to lodge fashion 
in six-storied discomfort. The effect 
is astonishing ; for the blatant architect, 
gesticulating in soft wood and ranting 
in paint, as it were, has sketched an 
evil dream of mediaevalism, incoherent 
with itself and with the very common- 
place facts of the village street. There, 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


5 


also, in Mr. Bee’s shop window, are 
plainly visible the more or less startling 
covers of the newest books, while from 
on high frowns down the counterfeit 
presentment of battlements and turrets, 
and of such terrors as lent like interest 
when novels were not, neither was the 
slightest idea of the short story yet 
conceived. 

But behind all and above all rise the 
wooded hills, which are neither modern 
nor ancient, but eternal. And in them 
and through them there is secret sweet- 
ness, and fragrance, and much that is 
gentle and lovely — in the heart of the 
defiantly beautiful earth-woman with 
her cold face, far beyond the reach 
of her tide-lover, and altogether out of 
hearing of his sighs and complaining 
speeches. There grow in endless 
greenness the white pines and the 
pitch pines, the black spruce and the 


1 6 LOVE IN IDLENESS 

white ; there droops the feathery larch 
by the creeping yew, and there gleam 
the birches, yellow, white, and grey ; 
the sturdy red oak spreads his arms 
to the scarlet maple, * and the witch 
hazel rustles softly in the mysterious 
forest breeze. There, buried in the 
wood’s bosom, bloom and blossom 
the wild flowers, and redden the blush- 
ing berries in unseen succession, from 
middle June to late September — 
violets first, and wild iris, strawberries 
and raspberries, blueberries and black- 
berries ; short-lived wild roses and 
tender little blue-bells, red lilies, golden- 
rod and clematis, in the confusion of 
nature’s loveliest order. 

All this Lawrence knew, and remem- 
bered, guessing at what he could neither 
remember nor know, with an artist’s 
facility for filling up the unfinished 
sketch left on the mind by one im- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


17 


pression. He had been at Bar Har- 
bour three years earlier, and had 
wandered amongst the woods and 
pottered along the shore in a skiff. 
But he had been alone then and had 
stopped in the mediaeval hotel, a 
rather solitary, thinking unit amidst 
the horde of thoughtless summer 
nomads, designated by the clerk at 
the desk as ‘ Number a hundred and 
twenty-three,’ and a candidate for a 
daily portion of the questionable din- 
ner at the hotel table. It was to be 
different this time, he thought, as he 
watched for the first sight of the pier 
when the Sappho rounded Bar Island. 
The Trehearnes had not been at their 
house three years ago, and Fanny Tre- 
hearne had been then not quite six- 
teen, just groping her way from the 
schoolroom to the world, and quite 
beneath his young importance — even 


I 8 LOVE IN IDLENESS 

had she been at Bar Harbour to 
wander among the woods with him. 
Things had changed, now. He was 
not quite sure that in her girlish heart 
she did not consider him beneath her 
notice. She was straight and tall — 
almost as tall as he, and she was proud, 
if she was not pretty, and she carried 
her head as high as the handsomest. 
Moreover, she was rich, and Louis 
Lawrence was at present phenomenally 
poor, with a rather distant chance of 
inheriting money. These were some 
of the excellent reasons why fate had 
made him fall in love with her, though 
none of them accounted for the fact 
that she had encouraged him, and had 
suggested to the Miss Miners that it 
would be very pleasant to have him 
come and stay a fortnight in July. 

The Sappho slowed down, stopped, 
backed, and made fast to the wooden 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


19 


pier, and as she swung round, Lawrence 
saw Fanny Trehearne standing a little 
apart from the group of people who 
had come down to meet their own 
friends or to watch other people meet- 
ing theirs. The young girl was evi- 
dently looking for him, and he took off 
his hat and waved it about erratically 
to attract her attention. When she 
saw him, she nodded with a faint smile 
and moved one step nearer to the 
gangway, to wait until he should come 
on shore with the crowd. 

She had a quiet, business-like way of 
moving, as though she never changed 
her position without a purpose. As 
Lawrence came along, trying to gain 
on the stream of passengers with whom 
he was moving, he kept his eyes fixed 
on her face, wondering whether the 
expression would change when he 
reached her and took her hand. When 


20 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


the moment came, the change was very 
slight. 

“ I like you — you’re punctual,” she 
said. “ Come along ! ” 

“ I’ve got some traps, you know,” 
he answered, hesitating. 

“ Well — there’s the expressman. 
Give him your checks.” 


\ 




CHAPTER II. 

They’ve all gone out in Mr. Brown’s 
cat-boat — so I came alone,” observed 
Miss Trehearne, when the expressman 
had been interviewed. 

“ Who are ‘ all ’ ? ” asked Lawrence. 
“Just the three Miss Miners?” 

“Yes. Just the three Miss Miners.” 

“ I thought you might have somebody 
stopping with you.” 

“ No. Nobody but you. Why do 
you say ‘ stopping ’ instead of ‘ staying ’ ? 
I don’t like it.” 

“Then I won’t say it again,” answered 
Lawrence, meekly. “ Why do you ob- 
ject to it, though?” 

“ You’re not an Englishman, so 
there’s no reason why you shouldn’t 


21 


22 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


Speak English. Here’s the buckboard. 
Can you drive?” 

“ Oh — well — yes,” replied the 
young man, rather doubtfully, and look- 
ing at the smart little turn-out. 

Fanny Trehearne fixed her cool grey 
eyes on his face with a critiacl expres- 
sion. 

“Can you ride?” she asked, pursu- 
ing her examination. 

“ Oh, yes — that is — to some extent. 
I’m not exactly a circus-rider, you 
know — but I can get on.” 

“ Most people can do that. The 
important thing is not to come off. 
What can you do — anyway? Are you 
a good man in a boat? You see I’ve 
only met you in society. I’ve never 
seen you do anything.” 

“ No,” answered Lawrence. “ I’m 
not a good man in a boat, as you call 
it — except that I’m never sea-sick. I 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


23 


don’t know anything about boats, if 
you mean saibboats. I can row a little 
— that’s all.” 

If you could ‘ row ’ as you call it, 
you’d say you could ‘ pull an oar ’ — 
you wouldn’t talk about ‘ rowing.’ 
Well, get in, and I’ll drive.” 

There was not the least scorn in her 
manner, at his inability to do all those 
things which are to be done at Bar 
Harbour if people do anything at all. 
She had simply ascertained the fact as 
a measure of safety. It was not easy 
to guess whether she despised him 
for his lack of skill or not, but he was 
inclined to think that she did, and he 
made up his mind that he would get 
up very early, and engage a sailor to go 
out with him and teach him something 
about boats. The resolution was half 
unconscious, for he was really thinking 
more of her than of himself just then. 


24 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


To tell the truth, he did not attach so 
much importance to any of the things 
she had mentioned as to feel greatly 
humiliated by his own ignorance. 

“ After all,” said Miss Trehearne, as 
Lawrence took his seat beside her, “ it 
doesn’t matter. And it’s far better to 
be frank, and say at once that you don’t 
know, than to pretend that you do, and 
then try to steer and drown one, or to 
drive and then break my neck. Only 
one rather wonders where you were 
brought up, you know.” 

“ Oh — I was brought up somehow,” 
answered Lawrence, vaguely. “ I don’t 
exactly remember.” 

“ It doesn’t matter,” returned his 
companion, in a reassuring tone. 

“ No. If you don’t mind, I don’t.” 

Fanny Trehearne laughed a little, 
without looking at him, for she was 
intent upon what she was doing. It 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


25 


was a part of her nature to fix her 
attention upon whatever she had in 
hand — a fact which must account for 
a certain indifference in what she said. 
Just then, too, she was crossing the 
main street of the village, and there 
were other vehicles moving about hither 
and thither. More than once she nod- 
ded to an acquaintance, whom Law- 
rence also recognized. 

“ It’s much more civilized than it 
was when I was here last,” observed 
Lawrence. “ There are lots of people 
one knows.” 

“ Much too civilized,” answered the 
young girl. I’m beginning to hate 
it.” 

“ I thought you liked society — ” 

I ? What made you think so? ” 

This sort of question is often extreme- 
ly embarrassing. Lawrence looked at 
her thoughtfully, and wished that he had 


26 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


not made his innocent remark, since 
he was called upon to explain it. 

“ I don’t know,” he replied at last. 
“ Somehow, I always associate you with 
society, and dancing, and that sort of 
thing.” 

“ Do you? It’s very unjust.” 

“ Well — it’s not exactly a crime to 
like society, is it? Why are you so 
angry? ” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t exaggerate ! 
It does not follow that I’m angry be- 
cause you’re not fair to me.” 

“ I didn’t mean to be unfair. How 
you take one up ! ” 

“ Really, Mr. Lawrence — I think 
it’s you who are doing that ! ” 

Miss Trehearne, having a stretch of 
clear road before her, gave her pair 
their heads for a moment, and the light 
buckboard dashed briskly up the gentle 
ascent. Lawrence was watching her, 


I 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


27 


though she did not look at him, and 
he thought he saw the colour deepen 
in her sunburnt cheek, although her 
grey eyes were as cool as ever. She was 
certainly not pretty, according to the 
probable average judgment of younger 
men. Lawrence, himself, who was an 
artist, wondered what he saw in her 
face to attract him, since he could not 
deny the attraction, and could not 
attribute it altogether to expression nor 
to the indirect effect of her character 
acting upon his imagination. He did 
not like to believe, either, that the charm 
was fictitious, and lay in a certain air of 
superior smartness, the result of good 
taste and plenty of money. .Anybody 
could wear serge, and a more or less 
nautical hat and gloves, just in the 
fashionable degree of looseness or tight- 
ness, as the case might be. Anybody 
who chose had the right to turn up a 


28 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


veil over the brim of the aforesaid hat, 
and anybody who did so stood a good 
chance of being sunburnt. Moreover, 
as Lawrence well knew, there is a 
quality of healthy complexion which 
tans to a golden brown, very becoming 
\vhen the grey eyes have dark lashes, 
but less so when, as in Fanny Tre- 
hearne’s case, the lashes and brows 
are much lighter than the hair — almost 
white, in fact. It is not certain 
whether the majority of human noses 
turn up or down. There was, however, 
no doubt but that Fanny’s turned up. 
It was also apparent that she had de- 
cidedly high cheek bones, a square 
jaw, and a large mouth, with lips much 
too even and too little curved for 
beauty. After all, her best points 
were perhaps her eyes, her golden- 
brown complexion, and her crisp, red- 
dish brown hair, which twisted itself 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


29 


into sharp little curls wherever it was 
not long enough to be smoothed. 
With a little more regularity of feature, 
Fanny Trehearne might have been 
called a milkmaid beauty, so far as her 
face was concerned. Fortunately for 
her, her looks were above or below 
such faint praise. It was doubtful 
whether she would be said to have 
charm, but she had individuality, since 
those terms are in common use to ex- 
press gifts which escape definition. 

A short silence followed her some- 
what indignant speech. Then, the road 
being still clear before her, she turned 
and looked at Lawrence. It was not 
a mere glance of enquiry, it was cer- 
tainly not a tender glance, but her eyes 
lingered with his for a moment. 

‘‘ Look here — are we going to quar- 
rel? ” she asked. 

“ Is there any reason why we should ? ” 
Lawrence smiled. 


30 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Not if we agree,” answered the 
young girl, gravely, -as she turned her 
head from him again. 

“ That means that we shan’t quarrel 
if I agree with you, I suppose,” observed 
the young man. 

“Well, why shouldn’t you?” asked 
Fanny, frankly. “ You may just as well, 
you know. You will in the end.” 

“ By Jove ! You seem pretty sure of 
that ! ” Lawrence laughed. 

Fanny said nothing in reply, but 
shortened the reins as the horses reached 
the top of the hill. Lawrence looked 
down towards the sea. The sun was 
very low, and the water was turning from 
sapphire to amaranth, while the dark 
islands gathered gold into their green 
depths. 

“ How beautiful it is ! ” exclaimed the 
artist, not exactly from impulse, though 
in real enjoyment, while consciously 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


31 


hoping that his companion would say 
something pleasant. 

“ Of course it’s beautiful,” she an- 
swered. “That’s why I come here.” 

“ I should put it in the opposite way,” 
said Lawrence. 

“ How?” 

“Why — it’s beautiful because you 
come here.” 

“ Oh — that’s ingenious ! You think 
it’s my mission to beautify landscapes.” 

“ I thought that if I said something 
pretty in the way of a compliment, we 
shouldn’t go on quarrelling.” 

“Oh! Were we quarrelling? I hadn’t 
noticed it.” 

“You said something about it a mo- 
ment ago,” observed Lawrence, mildly. 

“ Did I ? You’re an awfully literal per- 
son. By the bye, you know all the Miss 
Miners, don’t you ? I’ve forgotten.” 

“ I believe I do. There’s Miss Miner 
the elder — to begin with — ” 


32 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ The oldest — since there are three,” 
said Fanny, correcting him. “Yes — 
she’s the one with the hair — and teeth.” 

“ Yes, and Miss Elizabeth — isn’t that 
her name ? The plainest — ” 

“ And the nicest. And Augusta — 
she’s the third. Paints wild flowers 
and plays the piano. She’s about my 
age, I believe.” 

“ Your age ! Why, she must be over 
thirty ! ” 

“ No. She’s nineteen, still. She’s got 
an anchor out to windward — against 
the storm of time, you know. She swings 
a little with the tide, though.” 

“I don’t understand,” said Lawrence, 
to whom nautical language was incom- 
prehensible. 

“ Never mind. I only mean that she 
does not want to grow old. It’s always 
funny to see a person of nineteen who’s 
really over thirty.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


33 


Lawrence laughed a little. 

“ You’re fond of them all, aren’t you ? ” 
he asked, presently. 

“ Of course ! They’re my relations 
— how could I help being fond of 
them? ” 

“Oh — yes,” answered Lawrence, 
vaguely. “ But they really are very 
nice — people.” 

“ Why do you hesitate ? ” 

“ I don’t know. I couldn’t say ‘ very 
nice ladies,’ could I ? And I shouldn’t 
exactly say ‘ very nice women ’ — and 
‘ very nice people ’ sounds queer, some- 
how, doesn’t it? ” 

“ And you wouldn’t say ‘ very nice 
old maids ’ — ” 

“ Certainly not ! ” 

“ No. It wouldn’t be civil to me, 
nor kind to them. The truth is gen- 
erally unkind and usually rude. Besides, 
they love you.” 


34 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“Me?” 

“Yes. They rave about you, and 
your looks, and your manners, and your 
conversation, and your talents.” 

“ The Dickens ! I’m flattered ! But 
it’s always the wrong people who like 
one.” 

“Why the wrong people?” asked 
Fanny Trehearne, not looking at him. 

“ Because all the liking in the world 
from people one doesn’t care for can’t 
make up for the not liking of the one 
person one does care for.” 

“ Oh — in that way. It’s rash to care 
for only one person. It’s putting all 
one’s eggs into one basket.” 

“ What an extraordinary sentiment ! ” ‘ 

“ I didn’t mean it for sentiment.” 

“No — I should think not! Quite 
the contrary, I should say.” 

“ Quite,” affirmed Fanny, gravely. 

“ Quite? ” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


35 


“ Yes — almost quite.” 

Oh — ‘ almost ’ quite ? ” 

“ It’s the same thing.” 

“ Not to me.” 

The young girl would not turn her 
attention from her horses, though in 
Lawrence’s inexpert opinion she could 
have done so with perfect safety just 
then, and without impropriety. The 
most natural and innocent curiosity 
should have prompted her to look into 
his eyes for a moment, if only to see 
whether he were in earnest or not. 
He would certainly not have thought 
her a flirt if she had glanced kindly at 
him. But she looked resolutely at the 
horses’ heads. 

Here we are ! ” she exclaimed sud- 
denly. 

With a sharp turn to the left the 
buckboard swept through the open 
gate, the off horse breaking into a can- 


36 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


ter which Fanny instantly checked. 
The near wheels passed within a foot 
of the gatepost. 

“Wasn’t that rather close?” asked 
Lawrence. 

“Why? There was lots of room. 
Are you neiA^ous ? ” 

“ I suppose I am, since you say so.” 

“ I didn’t say so. I asked.” 

“ And I answered,” said Lawrence, 
tartly. 

“ How sensitive you are ! You act 
as though I had called you a coward.” 

“ I thought you meant to. It sounded 
rather like it.” 

“You have no right to think that I 
mean things which I haven’t said,” 
answered the young girl. 

“ Oh, very well. I apologize for 
thinking that what you said meant any- 
thing.” 

“Don’t lose your temper — don’t 
be a spoilt baby ! ” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


37 


Lawrence said nothing, and they 
reached the house in silence. Fanny 
was not mistaken in calling him sensi- 
tive, though he was by no means so 
nervous, perhaps, as she seemed ready 
to believe. She had a harsh way of 
saying things which, spoken with a 
smile, could not have given offence, 
and Lawrence was apt to attach 
real importance to her careless 
speeches. He felt himself out of his 
element from the first, in a place where 
he might be expected to do things in 
which he could not but show an awk- 
ward inexperience, and he was ready 
to resent anything like the suggestion 
that timidity was at the root of his 
ignorance, or was even its natural re- 
sult. 

His face was unnecessarily grave as * 
he held out his hand to help Fanny 
down from the buckboard, and she 


38 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


neither touched it nor looked at him 
as she sprang to the ground. 

“ Go into the library, and we’ll have 
tea,” she said, without turning her head, 
as she entered the house before him. 
“ I’ll be down in a moment.” 

She pointed carelessly to the open 
door and went through the hall in the 
direction of the staircase. Lawrence 
entered the room alone. 

'rhe house was very large ; for the 
Trehearnes were rich people, and liked 
to have their friends with them in 
considerable numbers. Moreover, they 
had bought land in Bar Harbour in days 
when it had been cheap, and had built 
their dwelling commodiously, in the 
midst of a big lot which ran down from 
the road to the sea. With the instinct 
of a man who has been obliged to live 
in New York, squeezed in, as it were, 
between tall houses on each side, Mr. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


39 


Trehearne had given himself the luxury, 
in Bar Harbour, of a house as wide and 
as deep as he could possibly desire, 
and only two stories high. 

The library was in the southwest 
corner of the house, opening on the 
south side upon a deep verandah 
from which wooden steps descended to 
the shrubbery, and having windows, to 
the west, which overlooked the broad 
lawn. The latter was enclosed by tall 
trees. The winding avenue led in a 
northerly direction to the main road. 
At the east end of the house, the offices 
ran out towards the boundary of the 
Trehearnes’ land, and beyond them, 
among the trees, there was a small 
yard enclosed by a lattice of wood 
eight or ten feet high. 

The library was the principal room 
on the ground floor, and was really larger 
than the drawing-room which followed it 


40 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


along the line of the south . verandah, 
though it seemed smaller from being 
more crowded with furniture. As 
generally happens in the country, it 
had become a sort of common room in 
which everybody preferred to sit. The 
drawing-room had been almost aban- 
doned of late, the three Miss Miners 
being sociable beings, unaccustomed to 
magnificence in their own homes, and 
averse to being alone with it anywhere. 
They felt that the drawing-room was too 
fine for them, and by tacit consent 
they chose the library for their general 
trysting-place and tea camp when they 
were indoors. Mrs. Trehearne, who 
was, perhaps, a little too fond of splen- 
dour, would have smiled at the idea as 
she thought of her gorgeously brocaded 
reception rooms in New York; but 
Fanny had simple tastes, like her 
father, and agreed with her old- maid 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


41 


cousins in preferring the plain, dark 
woodwork, the comfortable leathern 
chairs, and the backs of the books, to 
the dreary wilderness of expensive rugs 
and unnecessary gilding which lay be- 
yond. For the sake of coolness, the 
doors were usually opened between the 


rooms. 


CHAPTER III. 


The weather was warm. By con- 
trast with the cool air of the bay he 
had lately crossed, it seemed hot to 
Lawrence when he entered the library. 
Barely glancing at the room, he went 
straight to one of the doors which 
opened upon the verandah, and going 
out, sat down discontentedly in a big 
cushioned straw chair. It was very 
warm, and it seemed suddenly very 
still. In the distance he could hear 
the wheels of the buckboard in the 
avenue, as the groom took it round to 
the stables, and out of the close shrub- 
bery he caught the sharp, dry sound of 
footsteps rapidly retreating along a con- 
cealed cinder path. The air scarcely 
stirred the creeper which climbed up 
42 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


43 


one of the pillars of the verandah and 
festooned its way, curtain-like, in both 
directions to the opposite ends. On 
his right he could see the broad, slop- 
ing lawn, all shadowed now by the tall 
trees beyond. Without looking directly 
at it, he felt that the vivid green of the 
grass was softened and that there must 
be gold in the tops of the trees. The 
sensation was restful, but his eyes stared 
vacantly at the deep shrubbery which 
began at the foot of the verandah steps 
and stretched away under the spruces 
at his left. 

He was exceedingly discontented, 
though he had just arrived, or, perhaps, 
for that very reason among many other 
minor ones. He had never had any 
cause to expect from Fanny Trehearne 
anything in the way of sentiment, but 
he was none the less persuaded that he. 
had a moral right to look for something 


44 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


more than chaff and good-natured hos- 
pitality, spiced with such vigorous 
reproof as “ don’t be a spoilt baby.” 

The words rankled. He was asking 
himself just then whether he was a 
“ spoilt baby ” or not. It was of great 
importance to him to know the truth. 
If he was a spoilt baby, of course 
Miss Trehearne had a right to say so if 
she liked, though the expression was 
not complimentary. But if not, she 
was monstrously unjust. He did not 
deny that the accusation might be well 
founded ; for he was modest as well as 
sensitive, and did not think very highly 
of himself at present, though he hoped 
great things for the future, and believed 
that he was to be a famous artist. 

The more he told himself that he had 
no right to expect anything of Fanny, 
the more thoroughly convinced he be- 
came that his right existed, and that 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


45 


she was trampling upon it. She had 
ordered him into the library in a very 
peremptory and high-and-mighty fash- 
ion to wait for her, regardless of the 
fact that he had travelled twenty-four 
hours, and had acquired the prerogative 
right of the traveller to soap and water 
before all else. No doubt he was quite 
presentable, since the conditions of 
modern railways had made it possible 
to come in clean, or comparatively so, 
from a longish run. But the ancient 
traditions ought not to be swept out of 
the way, Louis thought, and the right 
of scrubbing subsisted still. She might 
at least have given him a hint as to the 
whereabouts of his room, since she had 
left him to himself for a quarter of an 
hour. She had not been gone four 
minutes yet, but Louis made it fifteen, 
and fifteen it was to be, in his esti- 
mation. 


46 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


Presently he heard a man’s footstep 
in the library behind him, and the 
subdued tinkling of a superior tea-ser- 
vice, of which the sound differs from 
the clatter of the hotel tea-tray, as the 
voice, say, of Fanny Trehearne differed 
in refinement from that of an Irish 
cook. But it irritated Lawrence, 
nevertheless, and he did not look 
round. He felt that when Fanny 
came down again, he intended to 
refuse tea altogether — presumably, by 
way of proving that he was not a spoilt 
baby after all. He crossed one leg 
over the other impatiently, and hesi- 
tated as to whether, if he lit a cigarette, 
it would seem rude to be smoking when 
Fanny should come, even though he 
was really in the open air on the veran- 
dah. But in this, his manners had the 
better of his impatience, and after 
touching his cigarette case in his 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


47 


pocket, in a longing way, he did not 
take it out. 

At last he heard Fanny enter the 
room. There was no mistaking her 
tread, for he had noticed that she wore 
tennis shoes. He knew that she could 
not see him where he sat, and he 
turned his head towards the door ex- 
pectantly. Again he heard the tinkle of 
the tea-things. Then there was silence. 
Then the urn began to hiss and sing 
softly, and there was another sort of 
tinkling. It was clear that Fanny had 
sat down. She could have no idea 
that he was sitting outside, as he knew, 
but he thought she might have taken 
the trouble to look for him. He 
listened intently for the sound of her 
step again, but it did not come, and, 
oddly enough, his heart began to beat 
more quickly. But he did not move. 
He felt a ridiculous determination to 


48 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


wait until she began to be impatient 
and to move about and look for him. 
He could not have told whether it were 
timidity, or nervousness, or ill- temper 
which kept him nailed to his chair, and 
just then he would have scorned the 
idea that it could be love in any shape, 
though his heart was beating so fast. 

Suddenly his straining ear caught the 
soft rustle made by the pages of a 
book, turned deliberately and smoothed 
afterwards. She was calmly reading, 
indifferent to his coming or staying 
away — reading while the tea was draw- 
ing. How stolid she was, he thought. 
She was certainly not conscious of the 
action of her heart as she sat there. 
For a few moments longer he did not 
move. Then he felt he wished to see 
her, to see how she was sitting, and 
how really indifferent she was. But if 
he made a sound, she would look up 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


49 


and lay down her book even before he 
entered the room. The verandah had 
a floor of painted boards, — which are 
more noisy than unpainted ones, for 
some occult reason, — and he could not 
stir a step without being heard. Besides, 
his straw easy-chair would creak when 
he rose. 

All at once he felt how very foolish 
he was, and he got up noisily, an angry 
blush on his young face. He reached 
the entrance in two strides and stood 
in the open doorway, with his back to 
the light.' As he had guessed, Fanny 
was reading. 

“ Oh ! ” he ejaculated with affected 
surprise, as he looked at her. 

She did not raise her eyes nor start, 
being evidently intent upon finishing 
the sentence she had begun. 

“ 1 thought you were never coming,” 
she said, absently. 


50 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


He was more hurt than ever by her 
indifference, and sat down at a little 
distance, without moving the light chair 
he had chosen. Fanny reached the 
foot of the page, put a letter she held 
into the place, closed the book upon it, 
and then at last looked up. 

“ Do you like your tea strong or 
weak?” she enquired in a business- 
like tone. 

“Just as it comes — I don’t care,” 
answered Lawrence, gloomily. 

“Then I’ll give it to you now. I 
like mine strong.” 

“ It’s bad for the nerves.” 

“ I haven’t any nerves,” said Fanny 
Trehearne, with conviction. 

“ That’s curious,” observed Lawrence, 
with fine sarcasm. 

Fanny looked at him without smil- 
ing, since there was nothing to smile 
at, and then poured out his tea. He 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


51 


took it in silence, but helped himself 
to more sugar, with a reproachful air. 

“ Oh — you like it sweet, do you ? ” 
said Fanny, interrogatively. 

“ Peculiarity of spoilt babies,” an- 
swered Lawrence, in bitter tones. 

Yes, 1 see it is.” 

And with this crushing retort Fanny 
Trehearne relapsed into silence. Law- 
rence began to drink his tea, burnt his 
mouth with courageous indifference, 
stirred up the sugar gravely, and said 
nothing. 

“ I wonder when they’ll get home,” 
said Fanny, after a long interval. 

“ Are you anxious about them ? ” 
enquired the young man, with affected 
politeness. 

“Anxious? No! 1 was only won- 
dering.” 

“ I’m not very amusing, I know,” 
said Lawrence, grimly. 


52 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ No, you’re not.” 

The blood rushed to his face again 
with his sudden irritation, and he drank 
more hot tea to keep himself in counte- 
nance. At that moment he sincerely 
wished that he had not come to Bar 
Harbour at all. 

‘‘ You’re not particularly encourag- 
ing, Miss Trehearne,” he said pres- 
ently. “I’m sure. I’m doing my best 
to be agreeable.” 

“And you think that I’m doing my 
best to be disagreeable ? I’m not, you 
know. It’s your imagination.” 

“I don’t know,” answered Lawrence, 
his face unbending a little. “You be- 
gan by telling me that you despised me 
because I’m such a duffer at out-of-door 
things, then you told me I was a spoilt 
baby, and now you’re proving to me 
that I’m a bore.” 

“ Duffer, baby, and bore ! ” Fanny 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


53 


laughed. “What an appalling com- 
bination ! ” 

“ It is, indeed. But that’s what you 
said — ” 

“ Oh, nonsense ! I wasn’t as rude 
as that, was I ? But I never said any- 
thing of the sort, you know.” 

“You really did say that I was a 
spoilt baby — ” 

“No. I told you not to be, by way 
of a general warning — ” 

“ Well, it’s the same thing — ” 

“Is it? If I tell you not to go oyt 
of the room, for instance, and if you 
sit still — is it the same thing as though 
you got up and went out? ” 

“ Why no — of course not ! How 
absurd ! ” 

“ Well, the other is absurd too.” 

“ I’ll never say again that women 
aren’t logical,” answered Lawrence, 
smiling in spite of himself. 


54 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“No — don’t. Have some more 
tea.” 

“Thanks — I’ve not finished. It’s 
too hot to drink.” 

Thereupon, his good temper return- 
ing, he desisted from self-torture by 
scalding, and set the cup down. Fanny 
watched him, but turned her eyes away 
as he looked up and she met his glance. 

“ I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said 
quietly. “ I’ve looked forward to it.” 

Perhaps she was a little the more 
riCady to say so, because she was in- 
wardly conscious of having rather wil- 
fully teased him, but she meant what 
she said. Lawrence felt his heart beat- 
ing again in a moment. Resting his 
elbow on his knees, he clasped his 
hands and looked down at the pattern 
of the rug under his feet. She did not 
realize how easily she could move him, 
not being by any means a flirt. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS ^5 

“ It’s nothing to the way I’ve looked 
forward to it,” he answered. 

She was silent, but he did not raise 
his head. He could see her face in 
the carpet. 

“ You know that, don’t you ? ” he 
asked, in a low voice, after a few mo- 
ments. 

Unfortunately for his information on 
the subject, the butler appeared just 
then, announcing a visitor. 

“ Mr. Brinsley.” 

It was clear that the manservant 
had no option in the matter of admit- 
ting the newcomer, who was in the 
room almost before his name was pro- 
nounced. 

^‘How do you do, Miss Trehearne?” 
he began as he came swiftly forward. 

I’m tremendously glad to find you at 
home. You’re generally out at this 
hour.” 


^6 LOVE IN IDLENESS 

“Is that why you chose it?” asked 
Fanny, with a little laugh and holding 
out her hand. “ Do you know Mr. 
Lawrence ?” she continued, by way of 
introducing the two men. “ Mr. Brins- 
ley,” she added, for Louis’s benefit. 

Lawrence had risen, and he shook 
hands with a good grace. But he hated 
Mr. Brinsley at once, both because the 
latter had come inopportunely and 
because his own sensitive nature was 
instantly and strongly repelled by the 
man. 

There was no mistaking Mr. Brins- 
ley’s Canadian accent, though he 
seemed anxious to make it as English 
as possible, and Lawrence disliked 
Canadians ; but that fact alone could 
not have produced the strongly dis- 
agreeable sensation of which the 
younger man was at once conscious, 
and he looked at the visitor in some- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


57 


thing Itke surprise at the strength of 
his instantaneous aversion. Brinsley, 
though dressed quietly, and with irre- 
proachable correctness, was a showy 
man, of medium height, but magnifi- 
cently made. His wrists were slender, 
nervous,, and sinewy, his ankles — dis- 
played to advantage by his low rus- 
set shoes — were beautifully modelled, 
whereas his shoulders were almost 
abnormally broad, and the cords and 
veins moved visibly in his athletic neck 
when he spoke or moved. The power- 
ful muscles were apparent under his 
thin grey clothes, and Lawrence had 
noticed the perfect grace and strength 
of his quick step when he had entered. 
In face he was very dark, and his wiry, 
short black hair had rusty reflexions. 
His skin was tanned to a deep brown, 
and mottled, especially about the eyes, 
with deep shadows, in which were 


58 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


freckles even darker than the shadows 
themselves. His beard evidently grew 
as high as his cheek bones, for the line 
from which it was shaved was cleanly 
drawn and marked by the dark fringe 
remaining above. His mustache was 
black and heavy, and he wore very 
small, closely cropped whiskers like 
those affected by naval officers. He 
had one of those arrogant, vain, astute 
noses which seem to point at whatever 
the small and beady black eyes judge 
to be worth having. 

At a glance, Lawrence saw that Brins- 
ley was an athlete, and he guessed 
instantly that the man must be good at 
all those things which Louis himself 
was unable to do. He was a man to 
ride, drive, run, pull an oar, and beat 
everybody at tennis. But neither was 
that the reason why Lawrence hated 
him from the first. It had been the 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


59 


touch of his hard dry hand, perhaps, 
or the flash of the light in his small 
black eyes, or his self-satisfied and all- 
conquering expression. It was not 
easy to say. Possibly, too, Louis 
thought that Brinsley was his rival, and 
resented the fact that Fanny had be- 
trayed no annoyance at the interrup- 
tion. 

But Brinsley barely vouchsafed Law- 
rence a glance, as the latter thought, 
and immediately sat himself down much 
nearer to Miss Trehearne and the tea- 
table than Louis, in his previous rage, 
had thought fit to do. 

Well, Miss Trehearne,” said Brins- 
ley, “how is Tim? Isn’t he all right 
yet?” 

“ He’s better,” answered Fanny. 
“ He had a bad time of it, but you 
can’t kill a wire-haired terrier, you 
know. He wouldn’t take the phos- 


6o 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


phate. I believe it was sweetened, and 
he hates sugar.” 

“ So do 1. Please don’t give me 
any,” he added quickly, watching her 
as she prepared a cup of tea for him. 

Lawrence’s resentment began to grow 
again. It was doubtless because Mr. 
Brinsley never took sugar that Fanny 
had seemed scornfully surprised at the 
artist’s weakness for it. 


CHAPTER IV. 


Louis Lawrence was exceedingly un- 
comfortable during the next few min- 
utes, and to add to his misery, he was 
quite conscious that he had nothing to 
complain of. It was natural that he 
should not know the people in Bar 
Harbour, excepting those whom he had 
known before, and that he should be 
in complete ignorance of all projected 
gaieties. Of course no one had sug- 
gested to the Reveres, for instance, to 
ask him to their dance ; because they 
were Boston people, they did not know 
him, and nobody was aware that he 
was within reach. Besides, Louis Law- 
rence was a very insignificant person- 
age, though he was well-connected, 
well-bred, and not ill-looking. He was 

6i 


62 


mVE IN IDLENESS 


just now a mere struggling artist, with 
no money except in the questionable 
future, and if he had talent, it was prob- 
lematical, since he had not distinguished 
himself in any way as yet. 

He remembered all these things, but 
they did not console him. In order 
not to seem rude, he made vague re- 
marks from time to time, when some- 
thing occurred to him to say, but he 
inwardly wished Brinsley a speedy de- 
parture and a fearful end. Fanny 
seemed amused and interested by the 
man’s conversation, and she herself 
talked fluently. Now and then Brinsley 
looked at Lawrence, really surprised 
by the latter’s ignorance of everything 
in the nature of sport, and possibly 
with a passing contempt which Law- 
rence noticed and proceeded to exag- 
gerate in importance. The artist was 
on the point of asking Fanny’s permis- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


63 


sion to go and find the room allotted 
to him, when a sound of women’s 
voices, high and low, came through the 
open windows. There was an audible 
little confusion in the hall, and the 
three Miss Miners entered the library 
one after the other in quick succession. 

“ Oh, Mr. Brinsley ! ” exclaimed Miss 
Cordelia, the eldest, coming forward 
with a pale smile which showed many 
of her very beautiful teeth. 

“ Mr. Brinsley is here,” said Miss 
Elizabeth, the ugly one, in an under- 
tone to Miss Augusta, who possessed 
the accomplishments. 

Then they also advanced and shook 
hands with much cordiality, the remains 
of which were promptly offered to Law- 
rence. Mr. Brinsley did not seem in 
the least overpowered by the sudden 
entrance of the three old maids. He 
smiled, moved up several chairs to the 


64 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


tea-table, and laughed agreeably over 
each chair, though Lawrence could not 
see that there was anything to laugh at. 
Brinsley’s vitality was tremendous, and 
his manners were certainly very good, 
so that he was a useful person in a 
drawing-room. His assurance, if put 
to the test, would have been found 
equal to most emergencies. But on 
the present occasion he had no need 
of it. It was evidently his mission to 
be worshipped by the three Miss Mi- 
ners and to be liked by Miss Trehearne, 
who did not like everybody. 

“ I’m sure we’ve missed the best 
part of your visit,” said Miss Cordelia. 

“ Oh no,” answered Brinsley, prompt- 
ly. “ I’ve only just come — at least it 
seems so to me,” he added, smiling at 
Fanny across the tea-table. 

Lawrence thought he must have been 
in the room more than half an hour, 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 65 

but the sisters were all delighted by 
the news that their idol meant to stay 
some time longer. 

“ How nice it would be if everybody 
made such speeches ! ” sighed Miss 
Augusta to Lawrence, who was next to 
her. “ Such a charming way of mak- 
ing Fanny feel that she talks well ! 
I’m sure he’s really been here some 
time.” 

He has,” answered Lawrence, ab- 
sently and without lowering his voice 
enough, for Brinsley immediately 
glanced at him. 

(( We’ve been having such a pleasant 
talk about the dogs and horses,” said 
the Canadian, willing to be disagree- 
able to the one other man present. 

I’m afraid we’ve bored Mr. Lawrence 
to death. Miss Trehearne — he doesn’t 
seem to care for those things as much 
as we do.” 


66 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ I don’t know anything about them,” 
answered the young man. 

I’m afraid you’ll bore yourself in Bar 
Harbour, then,” observed Mr. Brinsley. 
“What can you find to do all day 
long?” 

“ Nothing. I’m an artist.” 

“ Ah ? That’s very nice — you’ll be 
able to go out sketching with Miss 
Augusta — long excursions, don’t you 
know? All day — ” 

“ Oh, I shouldn’t dare to suggest 
such a thing ! ” cried Miss Augusta. 

“I’m sure I should be very happy, 
if you’d like to go,” said Lawrence, 
politely facing the dreadful possibility 
of a day with her in the woods, while 
Brinsley would in all likelihood be 
riding with Fanny or taking her out 
in a catboat. 

But Miss Augusta paid little atten- 
tion to him, so long as Brinsley was 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


67 


talking, which was most of the time. 
The man did not say anything worth 
repeating, but Lawrence knew that he 
was far from stupid in spite of his 
empty talk. At last Lawrence merely 
looked on, controlling his nervousness 
as well as he could and idly watching 
the faces of the party. Brinsley talked 
on and on, twisting to pieces the stem 
of a flower which he had worn in his 
coat, but which had unaccountably 
broken off. 

Lawrence wondered whether Fanny, 
too, could be under the charm, and he 
watched her with some anxiety. There 
was something oddly inscrutable in the 
young girl’s face and in her quiet eyes 
that did not often smile, even when 
she laughed. He had the strong im- 
pression, and he had felt it before, that 
she was very well able to conceal her 
real thoughts and intentions, behind a 


68 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


mask of genuine frankness and straight- 
forwardness. There are certain men 
and women who possess that gift. 
Without ever saying a word which 
even faintly suggests prevarication, they 
have a masterly reticence about what 
they do not wish to have known, 
whereby their acquaintances are some- 
times more completely deceived than 
they could be by the most ingenious 
falsehood. Lawrence was quite unable 
to judge from Fanny’s face whether 
she liked Brinsley or not, but he was 
wounded by a certain deference, if 
that word be not too strong, which she 
showed for the- man’s opinion, and 
which contrasted slightly with the dic- 
tatorial superiority which she assumed 
towards Lawrence himself. He con- 
soled 'himself as well as he could with 
the reflection that he really knew noth- 
ing about dogs, horses, or boats, and 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 69 

that Brinsley was certainly his master 
in all such knowledge. 

As an artist, he could not but admire 
the perfect proportions of the visitor, 
the strength of him, and the satisfac- 
tory equilibrium of forces which showed 
itself in his whole physical being ; but as 
a gentleman he was repelled by some- 
thing not easily defined, and as a lover 
he suspected a rival. He had not much 
right, indeed, to believe that Fanny 
Trehearne cared especially for him, any 
more than to predicate that she was in 
love with Brinsley. But, being in love 
himself, he very naturally arrogated to 
himself such a right without the slight- 
est hesitation, and he boldly asserted in 
his heart that Brinsley was nothing but 
a very handsome ‘cad,’ and that Fanny 
Trehearne was on the verge of marrying 
him. 

The conversation, meanwhile, was 


70 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


lively to the ear, if not to the intelli- 
gence. It was amazing to see how the 
three spinsters flattered their darling 
at every turn. Miss Cordelia led the 
chorus of praise, and her sisters, to 
speak musically, took up the theme, 
and answer, and counter- theme of the 
fugue, successively, in many keys. 
There was nothing that Mr. Brinsley 
did not know and could not do, accord- 
ing to the three Miss Miners, or if 
there were anything, it could not be 
worth knowing or doing. 

“You’ll flatter Mr. Brinsley to death,” 
laughed Fanny, “ though I must say that 
he bears it well.” 

A faint shade of colour rose in Miss 
Cordelia’s pale cheeks, indicative of 
indignation. 

“ Fanny ! ” she cried reprovingly. 
“ How rude you are ! I’m sure I 
wasn’t saying anything at all flattering.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


71 


“ I only wish people would say such 
things to me, then ! ” retorted the young 
girl. 

“ We’re all quite ready to, I’m sure. 
Miss Trehearne,” said Brinsley, smiling 
in a way that seemed to make his heavy 
dark mustache retreat outward, up his 
cheeks, like the whiskers of a cat when 
it grins. 

Fanny looked round and met Law- 
rence’s eyes. 

“You seem to be the only one who 
is ready,” she said, laughing again. 
“ One isn’t a crowd, as the little boys 
say.” 

“Where do you get such expressions, 
my dear child ? ” asked Cordelia. “I 
really think you’ve learned more slang 
since you’ve been here this summer, 
though I shouldn’t have believed it 
possible ! ” 

“There !” exclaimed Fanny, turning 


72 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


to Mr. Brinsley again. “ That’s the kind 
of flattery my relatives lavish on me 
from morning till night ! As if you 
didn’t all talk slang, the whole time ! ” 

“ Fanny ! ” protested Augusta, whose 
accomplishments made her sensitive and 
conscious. “ How can you say so? ” 
“Well — dialect, if you like the word 
better. I’ll prove it you. You all 
say ^ won’t ’ and ‘ shan’t ’ — and most 
of you say ‘ I’d like ’ — for instance — 
and Mr. Brinsley says ‘ ain’t,’ because 
he’s English — ” 

“ Well — what ought we to say? ” 
asked Augusta. “ Nobody says ‘I will 
not,’ and all that.” 

“ You ought to. It’s dialect not 
to — and the absurd thing is that 
people who go in for writing books 
generally write out all the things you 
don’t say, and write them in the wrong 
order. We say ‘wouldn’t you’ — don’t 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


73 


we ? Well, doesn’t that stand for ‘ would 
not you ’ ? __:And yet they print ‘ would 
you not ’ — always. It’s ridiculous. I 
read a criticism the other day on a man 
who had written a book and who wrote 
‘ will not you ’ for ‘ won’t you ’ and 
‘ would not you ’ for ‘ wouldn’t you ’ 
because he wanted to be accurate. 
You’ve no idea what horrid things the 
critic said of him — he simply stood 
on his hind legs and pawed the air ! 
It’s so silly ! Either we should speak 
as we write, or write as we speak. I 
don’t mean in philosophy — and things 
— the steam-engine and the descent of 
man, and all that — but in writing out 
conversations. But then, of course, 
nobody will agree with me — so I talk 
as I please.” 

“ There’s a great deal of truth in 
what you say. Miss Trehearne,” ob- 
served Brinsley, assuming a wise air. 


74 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Besides, I beg to differ from Miss 
Miner, on one point — I venture to 
say that I don’t dislike your slang, if 
it’s slang at all. It’s expressive, of its 
kind.” 

At last ! ” cried Fanny, with a 
laugh. “ I get some praise — faint, 
but perceptible.” 

“ Faint praise isn’t supposed to be 
complimentary,” observed Lawrence, 
laughing too. 

“That’s true,” answered Fanny. 
“ It’s just the opposite — the thing 
with a d — I won’t say it on account 
of Cordelia. She’d all frizzle up with 
horror if I said it — wouldn’t you, 
dear? There’d positively be nothing 
left of you — nothing but a dear little 
withered rose-leaf with a dewdrop in 
the middle, representing your tears for 
my sins ! ” 

“ I’m afraid so,” answered Cordelia, 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


75 


with a little accentuation of her tired 
smile. 

It was not a disagreeable smile in 
itself, except that it was perpetual and 
was the expression of patiently and 
cheerfully borne adversity, rather than 
of any satisfaction with things in 
general. For the lives of the three 
Miss Miners had not been happy. 
Sometimes Fanny felt a sincere and 
loving pity for the three, and especially 
for the eldest. But there were also 
times when Cordelia’s smile exasper- 
ated her beyond endurance. 

Mr. Brinsley rose to go, rather sud- 
denly, after checking a movement of 
his hand in the direction of his watch. 

“ You’re not going, surely ! ” cried 
one or two of the Miss Miners. “ You’re 
coming to dinner.” 

“ Stay as you are,” suggested Fanny, 
greatly to Lawrence’s annoyance. 


76 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“You’re awfully kind,” answered the 
Canadian. “ But I can’t, to-night. 1 
wish I could. I’ve asked several people 
to dine with me at the Kebo Valley 
Club. I’d cut any other engagement, 
to dine with you — indeed I would. 
I’m awfully sorry.” 

Many regrets were expressed that he 
could not stay, and the leave-taking 
seemed sudden to Lawrence, who stood 
looking on, still wondering why he dis- 
liked the man so much. At last he 
heard the front door closed behind 
him. 

“Who is Mr. Brinsley?” he asked 
of Fanny Trehearne, while the three 
Miss Miners were settling themselves 
again. 

“ Oh — I don’t know. I believe he’s 
a Canadian Englishman. He’s very 
agreeable — don’t you think so? ” 

“ He’s the most delightful man I 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


77 


ever met ! ” sighed Augusta Miner, 
before Lawrence had time to say any- 
■ thing. 

“ Did you notice his eyes, Mr. Law- 
rence ? ” asked Miss Elizabeth. “ Don’t 
you think they’re beautiful?” 

“Beautiful? Well — it depends,” 
Lawrence answered with considerable 
hesitation, for he did not in the least 
know what to say. 

“ Oh, but it isn’t his eyes, nor his 
conversation J ” put in Cordelia, em- 
phatically. “ It is that he’s such a 
perfect gentleman ! You feel that he 
wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t quite 
— quite — don’t you know ? ” 

“ I’m not sure that I do,” replied 
Lawrence, in some bewilderment. “ But 
I understand what you mean,” he added 
confidently. 

“ My dear,” said Augusta to her 
eldest sister, “ all that is perfectly true. 


78 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


as I always say. But those are not the 
things that make him the most charm- 
ing man I ever met. Oh dear, no ! 
Ever so many men one knows have 
good eyes, and talk well, and are gen- 
tlemen in every way. I’m sure you 
wouldn’t have a man about if he wasn’t 
a gentleman. Would you ? ” 

“ Oh no — in a wider sense — all 
the men we have to do with are, of 
course — ” 

“Well,” argued Augusta, “that’s just 
what I’m telling you, my dear. It isn’t 
those things. It lies much deeper. 
It’s a sort of refined appreciation — an 
appreciative refinement — both, you 
know. Now, the other day, do you 
remember? — when I was playing that 
Mazurka of Chopin — did you notice 
his expression? ” 

“ But he always has that expression 
when anything pleases him very much,” 
said Miss Elizabeth. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


79 


“ Yes, I know. But just then, it was 
quite extraordinary — there’s some- 
thing almost childlike — ” 

“If you go on about Mr. Brinsley in 
this way much longer, you’ll all have a 
fit,” observed Fanny Trehearne. 

“ My dear,” answered Cordelia, 
gravely, “ do you know what a ‘ fit ’ 
means? Really, sometimes, you do 
exaggerate — ” 

“A fit means convulsions — what 
babies have, you know. They used to 
say it was brought on by looking at 
the moon.” 

Lawrence felt a strong inclination to 
laugh at this moment, but he controlled 
it, and only smiled. Then, to his con- 
siderable embarrassment, they all ap- 
pealed to him, probably in the hope of 
more praise for Brinsley. 

“ Do tell us how he strikes you, Mr. 
Lawrence,” said Cordelia. ^ 


8o 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Yes, do ! ” echoed Elizabeth. 

“ Oh, please do ! ” cried Augusta, at 
the same moment. 

“ I should be curious to know what 
you think of him,” said Fanny Tre- 
hearne. 

“ Well, really,” stammered the un- 
fortunate young man, “ I’ve hardly 
seen him — I’ve not had time to form 
an opinion — you must know him, and 
you all like him, and — it seems to me 
— that settles it. Doesn’t it? ” 

While Lawrence was speaking. Miss 
Cordelia stooped and picked some- 
thing up from the floor. He noticed 
that it was the leafless stem of the 
flower which Brinsley had been twist- 
ing in his fingers. She did not throw 
it away, but her hand closed over it, 
and Lawrence did not see it again. 


CHAPTER V. 


Louis Lawrence had not been at 
Bar Harbour a week before he became 
fully aware — if indeed there had pre- 
viously been any doubt on the subject 
in his mind — that he was very much 
in love with Fanny Trehearne. It be- 
came clear to him that, although he had 
believed himself to be in love once or 
twice before then, he had been mis- 
taken, and that he had never known 
until the present time exactly what love 
meant. He was not even sure that he 
was pleased with the passion, or,’ at 
least, with the form in which it attacked 
him. Sensitive as he was, it ‘ took him 
hard,’ as the saying is, and he felt that 
it had the better of him at every turn, 

8i 


82 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


and disposed of him in spite of himself 
at every hour of the day. 

When he was alone he wondered 
why he had been asked to the house, 
and whether Mr. and Mrs. Trehearne, 
who were abroad, knew anything about 
it. He was a modest man, and was 
inclined to underestimate himself, so 
that it could never have occurred to 
him that Fanny Trehearne might have 
been strongly attracted by him during 
their acquaintance in town, and might 
have insisted that he should be asked 
to come and pass a fortnight. More- 
over, Fanny lost no opportunity of 
impressing upon him that he was a 
great favourite with the three Miss 
Miners, and she managed to convey 
the impression that he had been asked 
chiefly to please them, though she 
never said so. 

Meanwhile, however, it was evident 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


83 


that the three sisters were absorbed in 
Mr. Brinsley, and that when the latter 
was present they took very little notice 
of Lawrence. He laughed at the 
thought that the three old maids 
should all be equally in love with the 
showy Canadian, and he told himself 
that the thing was ridiculous ; that they 
were merely enthusiastic women, — 
‘gushing’ women, he called them in 
his thoughts, — who were flattered by 
the diplomatic and unfailing civilities 
of a man who was evidently in pursuit 
of Fanny Trehearne. 

For by this time he was convinced 
that Brinsley had made up his mind to 
marry Fanny if he could ; and he hated 
him all the more for it, even to formu- 
lating wicked prayers for the suitor’s 
immediate destruction. The worst of 
it was, that the man might possibly 
succeed. A girl who will and can ride 


84 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


anything, who beats everybody at ten- 
nis, and who is as good as most men 
in a sail-boat, may naturally be supposed 
to admire a man who does those things, 
and many others, in a style bordering 
upon perfection. This same man, too, 
though not exactly clever in an intel- 
lectual way, possessed at least the gifts 
of fluency and tact, combined with 
great coolness under all circumstances, 
so far as Lawrence had observed him. 
It was hardly fair to assert that he was 
dishonest because he flattered the three 
Miss Miners, and occupied himself 
largely in trying to anticipate their 
smallest wishes. He did it so well as 
to make even Fanny Trehearne believe 
that he liked them for their own sakes, 
and that his intentions were disinter- 
ested and not directed wholly to her- 
self. Of course she knew that he 
wished to marry her ; but she was used 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


85 


to that. Two, at least, of several men 
who had already informed her that 
their happiness depended upon winning 
her, were even now in Bar Harbour, — 
presumably repeating that or a similar 
statement to more or less willing ears. 
As for Lawrence, he could not fairly 
blame Brinsley for his behaviour — he 
confessed in secret that he flattered the 
three Miss Miners himself, with small 
regard for unprejudiced truth. Besides, 
they were very kind to him. But he 
found it hard to speak fairly of Brinsley 
when alone with Fanny Trehearne. 

“ I *don’t like the man,” he said, on 
inadequate provocation, for the twen- 
tieth time. 

“ I know you don’t,” answered Fan- 
ny, calmly, ‘‘ but that’s no reason for 
letting go of the tiller. Mind the boom ! 
she’s going about — no — it’s of no use 
to put the helm up now. We’ve no way 


86 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


on — let her go ! No — I don’t mean 
that — oh, do give it to me ! ” 

And thereupon Fanny, who was sit- 
ting forward of him on the weather side, 
stretched her long arm across him, 
pushing him back into his corner, and 
put the helm hard down with her left 
hand, while she hauled in the sheet as 
much as she could with her right, bend- 
ing her head low to avoid the boom as 
it came swinging over. 

Lawrence could not help looking 
down at her, and he forgot all about 
the boom, being far too little familiar 
with boating to avoid it instinctively, 
when he felt the boat going about. It 
came slowly, for there was little wind ; 
and the catboat, having no way on to 
speak of, was in no hurry to right her- 
self and go over on the other tack, — 
but just as the shadow of the sail warned 
him that something was coming, he 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


87 


looked up, and at the same instant re- 
ceived the blow full on his forehead, 
just above his eyes. He wore a soft, 
knitted woollen cap, which did not even 
afford the protection of a visor. 

Fanny turned her head at once, for 
the blow had been audible, and she 
saw what had happened. > Lawrence 
had raised his hand to his forehead 
instinctively. 

“Are you hurt?” asked Fanny, 
quickly, keeping her eyes upon him, 
and still holding the helm hard over 
so as to give the boat way. 

Lawrence did not answer at once. 
He was half stunned, and still covered 
his forehead with his hand. The young 
girl looked at him intently, and there 
was an expression in her eyes which 
he, at least, had never seen there — a 
sudden, scared light which had nothing 
to do with fear. 


88 


bOVE IN IDLENESS 


“Are you hurt?” she asked again, 
gently. 

His delicate face grew suddenly pale, 
as the blood, which had rushed up at 
first under the shock of the blow, sub- 
sided as suddenly. Fanny turned her 
eyes from him and looked ahead and 
under the sail to leeward. She let out 
a little more sheet, so that the boat 
could run very free ; for the craft, like 
most catboats, had a weather helm 
when the sheet was well aft, and Fanny 
wanted her hands. Moreover, Law- 
rence was now on the lee side with 
her, and the boat would have heeled 
too far over with the wind abeam. 
As soon as the sail drew properly, 
Fanny sat up beside Lawrence, steering 
across him with her left hand. With 
her right she could reach the water, 
and she scooped up what she could in 
her hollow palm, wetting her sleeve to 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


89 


the shoulder as she did so, for the boat 
was gaining speed. She dashed the 
drops in his face. 

“Are you hurt?” she asked a third 
time, drawing away his hand and laying 
her own wet one upon his forehead. 

“ Oh no,” he answered faintly. “ I’m 
not hurt at all.” 

She could tell by his voice that he 
was not speaking the truth, and a mo- 
ment later, as he leaned against the 
side of the boat, his head fell back, and 
his lips parted in a dead faint. 

There was no scorn in the young 
girl’s face for a man who could faint 
so easily, as it seemed ; but the scared 
look came into her eyes again, and 
without hesitation, still steering with 
her left hand, she passed her right arm 
round his neck and supported him. 
The breeze was almost in her face 
now, for she was looking astern, and 


90 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


she knew by the way it fanned her 
whether she was keeping the boat fairly 
before it. 

Lawrence did not revive immedi- 
ately, and it was fortunate that there 
was so little wind, or Fanny might have 
got into trouble. She looked at him a 
moment longer and hesitated, for the 
position was a difficult one, as will be 
admitted. But she was equal to it 
and knew what to do. Letting his 
head fall back as it would, she with- 
drew her arm, let go the helm, and 
hauled in the sheet as the boat’s head 
came up. As the boom came over 
towards Lawrence’s head, she caught 
it and lifted it over him, hauled in the 
slack and made the sheet fast, spring- 
ing forward instantly to let go the 
halliards. The gaff came rattling down, 
and she gathered in the bellying sail 
hastily and took a turn round every- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


91 


thing with the end of the throat hall- 
iard, which chanced to be long enough 
— the gaskets were out of her reach, 
in the bottom of the boat. 

There was little or no sea on, as the 
tide was near the turning, and the cat- 
boat was rocking softly to the little 
waves when Fanny came aft again. 
Lawrence’s head was still hanging back, 
his lips were parted, and his eyes were 
half open, showing the whites in a rather 
ghastly way. With strong arms the 
young girl half lifted him, and let him 
gently down upon the cushions in the 
stern-sheets. Then she leaned over 
the side and wetted her handkerchief 
and laid it upon his bruised forehead. 
The cold water and the change of posi- 
tion brought him to himself. 

He opened his eyes and looked up 
into her face as she bent over him. 
Then, all at once, he seemed to realize 


92 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


what had happened, and with an excla- 
mation he tried to sit up. But she 
would not let him. 

“ Lie still a minute longer ! ” she 
said authoritatively. “ You’ll be all 
right in a little while.” 

But it isn’t anything, I assure you,” 
he protested, looking about him in a 
dazed way. “ Please let me sit up ! 
I won’t make a fool of myself again — 
it’s only my heart, you know. It stops 
sometimes — it wasn’t the knock.” 

“ Your heart? ” repeated Fanny, with 
greater anxiety than Lawrence might 
have expected. “ You haven’t got heart 
disease, have you? ” 

“ Oh no — not so bad as that. It’s 
all right now. It will begin to beat very 
hard presently — there — I can feel it 
— and then it will go on regularly again. 
It isn’t anything. I fancy I smoke too 
much — or it’s coffee — or something. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


93 


Please don’t look as though you thought 
it were anything serious, Miss Trehearne. 
I assure you, it’s nothing. Lots of peo- 
ple have it.” 

“ It is serious. Anything that has to 
do with the heart is serious.” 

Lawrence smiled faintly. 

“ Is that a joke ? ” he asked. “ If it 
is, please let me sit up.” 

“No — that isn’t a reason,” answered 
Fanny, laughing a little, though her 
eyes were still grave. “ You must lie 
still a little longer. You might faint 
again, you know. It must be danger- 
ous to have one’s heart behaving so 
strangely.” 

“ Oh — I don’t believe so.” 

“You don’t believe so? You mean 
that it’s possible, but that you hope it 
won’t stop? Is that it?” 

“Oh — well — perhaps. But I don’t 
think there’s any real danger. Besides 
— if it did, it’s easy, you know.” 


94 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ What’s easy ? ” 

“ It’s an easy death — over at once, 
in a flash. No lingering and last words 
and all that.” He laughed. 

Fanny Trehearne’s sunburned cheeks 
grew pale under their tan, and her 
cool grey eyes turned slowly away 
from his face, and rested on the blue 
water. 

“ Please don’t talk about such things ! ” 
she said in a tone that seemed hard to 
Lawrence. 

“ Are you afraid of death ? ” he asked, 
still smiling. 

“I?” She turned upon him indig- 
nantly. “No — I don’t believe that I’m 
much afraid of anything — for myself.” 

“You turned pale,” observed the 
young man, raising himself on his el- 
bow as he lay on the cushions, and 
looking at her. Her colour came back 
more quickly than it had gone. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


95 


‘‘Did 1?” she asked indiiferently 
enough. “ It’s probably the sun. It’s 
hot, lying here and drifting.” 

“ No. It wasn’t the sun,” said Law- 
rence, with conviction. “You were 
thinking that somebody you are fond 
of might die suddenly. VVe were talk- 
ing about death.” 

“ What difference does it make whom 
I was thinking of?” She spoke im- 
patiently now, still watching the water. 

“ It makes all the difference there is, 
that’s all,” answered Lawrence. “ Won’t 
you tell me ? ” 

“ No. Certainly not ! Why should 
I ? Look here — if you’re well enough 
to talk, you’re well enough to help me 
to get the sail up again.” 

“Of course I am — but — ” Law- 
rence showed no inclination to move. 

“ But what? You’re too lazy, I sup- 
pose.” Fanny laughed. “ Let me see 


96 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


your forehead — take your cap off,” 
she added with a change of tone. 

Lawrence thrust the cap back, which 
did not help matters much, as his hair 
grew low and partially hid the bruise. 
The skin was not broken, but it was 
almost purple, and a large swelling had 
already appeared. 

“ It’s too bad ! ” exclaimed Fanny, 
looking at it, as he bent down his head, 
and softly touching it with her un- 
gloved hand, “ Tell me — do you feel 
very weak and dizzy still? I was only 
laughing when I spoke of your helping 
me with the sail.” 

“ Oh no ! ” answered Lawrence, 
cheerfully. “ It aches a little, of course, 
but it will soon go off.” 

“And your heart?” asked Fanny, 
anxiously. “ Is it all right now ? You 
don’t think you’ll faint again, do you? ” 

“Not a bit.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


97 


“ I’m not sure. You’re very pale.” 

“ I’m always pale, you know. It’s 
my nature. It doesn’t mean anything. 
Some people are naturally pale.” 

“But you’re not. You’re dark, or 
brown, and not red, but you’re not 
usually pale. I wish I had some 
whiskey, or something, to give you.” 

She looked round the boat rather 
helplessly as though expecting to dis- 
cover a remedy for his weakness. 

“ Please don’t make so much of it,” 
said Lawrence, in a tone which showed 
that he was almost annoyed by her 
persistence. “ I assure you that I 
won’t have such, bad taste as to die on 
your hands before we get to land ! ” 

Fanny rose to her feet and turned 
away from him with an impatient 
exclamation. 

“Just keep the helm amidships 
while I get the sail up,” she said, with- 


98 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


out looking at him, and stepping upon 
the seat which ran along the side, she 
was on the little deck in a moment, 
with both halliards in her hands. 

Lawrence sprang forward to help her, 
forgetting what she had just told him 
to do. 

“ Do as I told you ! ” she exclaimed 
quickly and impatiently. Do you 
know what the tiller is? Well, keep 
it right in the middle till I tell you to 
do something else.” 

“ Don’t be fierce about it,” laughed 
Lawrence, obeying her. 

But when she was not looking, he 
pressed one hand to his forehead with 
all his might, as though to drive out 
the pain, which increased with every 
minute. 

Meanwhile, Fanny laid her weight to 
the halliards, and the sail went flap- 
ping up, throat and peak. The girl 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


99 


was very strong, and had been taught 
to handle a catboat when she had 
been a mere child, so that there was 
nothing extraordinary in her accom- 
plishing unaided a little feat which 
would have puzzled many a smart 
young gentleman who fancies him- 
self half a sailor. 


CHAPTER VI. 


It chanced that on that evening 
Roger Brinsley was to dine with the 
Miss Miners. He was often-asked, and 
he accepted as often as he could. As 
a matter of fact, he was noj, so much 
sought after elsew4iere, as he-' was will- 
ing to let the fourMadies believe', for 
there were people in Bar Harbour who 
shared Lawrence’s distrust of him, while 
admitting that, so far as they could tell, 
it was quite unfounded. There was 
nothing against him. The men said 
that he played a good deal at the club, 
and remarked that he was a good type 
of the professional gambler, but no one 
ever said that he won too much. On 
the contrary, it was believed that he had 
lost altogether rather heavily during the 


lOO 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


lOI 


six weeks since he had first appeared. 
He paid cheerfully, however, and was. 
thought to be rich. Nevertheless, the 
men whose opinion was worth having 
did not like him. They wondered why 
the Miss Miners had him so often to 
the house, and whether there were not 
some danger that Fanny Trehearne 
might take a fancy to him. 

It was very late when Fanny and 
Lawrence got home, for the catboat 
had been carried far up Frenchman’s 
Bay during the time after the little acci- 
dent, and it had been necessary to beat 
, to windward for two hours against the 
rising tide in order to fetch the channel 
between Bar Island and Sheep Porcu- 
pine. The consequence was that the 
pair had scarcely time to dress for 
dinner after they reached the house. 

Lawrence felt ill and tired, and wasi 
conscious that the swelling on his. fore- 


102 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


head was not beautiful to see. He was 
still dazed, and by no means himself, 
when he looked into the glass and 
knotted his tie. But though he might 
well have given an excuse and stayed 
in his room instead of going down to 
dinner, he refused to consider the 
possibility of such a thing even for a 
moment. He felt something just then 
which more than compensated him for 
his bruises and his wretched sensation 
of weakness. 

The conversation, after the boat had 
got under way again, had languished,, 
and had been so constantly interrupted 
by the often repeated operation of 
going about, that Lawrence had not 
succeeded in bringing it back to the 
point at which Fanny had broken it off 
when she had gone forward to hoist 
the sail. But he had more than half 
guessed what might have followed, and 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


103 


the reasonable belief that he might be 
right had changed the face of his 
world. He believed that Fanny had 
turned pale at the idea that his life 
was in danger. 

One smiles at the simplicity of the 
thought, in black and white, by itself, 
just itself, and nothing more. Yet it 
was a great matter to Louis Lawrence, 
and as he looked at his bruised face in 
the glass he felt that he was too happy 
to shut himself up in his room for the 
evening, out of sight of the cool grey 
eyes he loved. 

He had assuredly not meant to 
frighten Fanny when he had spoken, 
and he had been very far from invent- 
ing an imaginary ailment with which to 
excite her sympathy. The whole thing 
had come up unexpectedly as the result 
of the accident. Hence its value. 

As often happens, the two people in 


104 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


the house who had been most hurried 
in dressing were the first down, and as 
Lawrence entered the library he heard 
Fanny’s footstep behind him. He 
bowed as they came forward together 
to the empty fireplace. She looked at 
him critically before she spoke. 

‘‘You’re badly knocked about. How 
do you feel? ” There was a man-like 
directness in her way of asking ques- 
tions, which was softened by the beauty 
of her voice. 

“ I feel — as I never felt before,” 
answered Lawrence, conscious that 
his eyes grew dark as they met hers. 
“You told me something to-day — 
though you did not say it.” 

Fanny did not avoid his gaze. 

“ Did I? ” she asked very gravely. 

“ Yes. Plainly.” 

“ Fm very sorry,” she answered, with a 
little sigh, and turning from him at last. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS I05 

“Are you taking it back?” Louis’s 
voice trembled as he asked the ques- 
tion. ( 

“ Hush ! ” 

Just then the voices of the three 
Miss Miners were heard in the hall, 
and at the same instant the distant 
tinkle of the front-door bell announced 
the arrival of Roger Brinsley. 

The conversation turned upon Law- 
rence’s accident, from the first, as was 
natural, considering his appearance. 
He dwelt laughingly on his utter help- 
lessness in a boat, while Fanny was 
inclined to consider the whole affair as 
rather serious. For some reason or 
other Brinsley was displeased at it, and 
ventured to say a disagreeable thing. 
He had lost at cards in the afternoon 
and was in bad humour. He spoke to 
Fanny with affected apprehension. 

“ You really ought to take somebody 


io6 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


with you who knows enough to lend a 
hand at a pinch, Miss Trehearne,” he 
said. “ Suppose that you got into a 
squall and had to take a reef — you’d 
be in a bad way, you know.” 

“ If I couldn’t manage a catboat 
alone. I’d walk,” answered Fanny, with 
contempt. 

“ Yes — no doubt. But if a squall 
really came up, what would you do? 
Mr. Lawrence confesses that he couldn’t 
help you.” 

“Are you chaffing, Mr. Brinsley?” 
asked Fanny, severely. “ Or do you 
think I really shouldn’t know what to 
do?” 

“ I doubt whether you would.” 

“Oh — I’d let go the halliards and 
lash the helm amidships, and take my 
reef with the sail down — ‘ hoist ’em up 
and off again,’ after that, as the fisher- 
men say.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


107 


“ I think you could stand an examina- 
tion,” said Brinsley, 

“ I daresay. Could you ? If you 
were going about off a lee shore in a 
storm and missed stays, could you 
club- haul your ship, Mr. Brinsley?” 

The three Miss Miners stared at the 
two in surprise and wonder, not under- 
standing a word of what they were say- 
ing. It was apparent to Lawrence, 
however, that Fanny was bent on put- 
ting Brinsley in the position of confess- 
ing his ignorance at last ; but where the 
young girl had learned even the lan- 
guage of seamanship, which she used 
with such apparent precision, was more 
than Lawrence could guess. Brinsley 
did not answer at once, and Fanny 
pressed him. 

“ Do you even know what club-haul- 
ing means? ” she asked, mercilessly. 

"‘Well — no — really, I think the 
term must be obsolete.” 


io8 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Not at sea,” retorted Fanny. 

This was crushing, and Brinsley, who 
was really a very good hand at ordinary 
sailing, grew angry. 

“ Of course you’ve had some expe- 
rience in catboats,” Fanny continued. 
“ That isn’t serious sailing, you know. 
It’s about equivalent, in horsemanship, 
to riding a donkey — a degree less 
dignified than walking, and a little less 
trouble.” 

“ I won’t say anything about myself, 
Miss Trehearne,” said Brinsley, “ but 
you might treat the catboat a little less 
roughly. I didn’t know you’d ever 
sailed anything else.” 

Here the Miss Miners interposed, 
one after the other, protesting that it 
was not fair to use up the opportu- 
nities of conversation in such nautical 
jargon. 

“ I only wished to prove to Mr. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS IO9 

Brinsley that I’m to be trusted at sea,” 
Fanny answered. 

“ My dear child,” said Miss Cordelia, 

Mr. Brinsley knows that, and he must 
be a good judge, having been in the 
navy.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t know you’d been in 
the navy, Mr. Brinsley,” said the piti- 
less young girl, fixing her eyes on his 
with an expression which he, perhaps, 
understood, though.no one else noticed 
it. “The English navy, of course?” 

“ The English navy,” repeated Mr. 
Brinsley, sharply. 

“ Oh, well — that accounts for your 
not knowing how to club-haul a ship. 
Your own people are always saying that 
your service is going to the dogs.” 

Even Lawrence was surprised, and 
Brinsley looked angrily across the table 
at his tormentor, but found nothing to 
say on the spur of the moment. 


I lO 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ However,” Fanny continued with 
some condescension, “ I’m rather glad 
to know you’re a navy man. I’ll get 
you to come out with me some day 
and verify some of the bearings on our 
local chart. I believe there are one or 
two mistakes. We’ll take the sextant 
and my chronometer with us, and the 
tables, and take the sun — each of us, 
you know, and work it out separately, 
and see how near we get. That will 
be great fun. You must all come and 
see Mr. Brinsley and me take the sun,” 
she added, looking round at the others. 
“ Let’s go to-morrow. We’ll take our 
luncheon with us and picnic on board. 
Can you come to-morrow, Mr. Brinsley? 
We must start at eleven so as to get 
far enough out to have a horizon by 
noon. I hope you’re not engaged? 
Are you ? ” 

“ I’m sorry to say I am,” answered 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


III 


the unfortunate man. “ I’m going to 
ride with some people just at that 
hour.” 

“ How unlucky ! ” exclaimed Fanny, 
who had expected the refusal. “ I’ll 
take Mr. Lawrence, anyhow, and give 
him a lesson in navigation.” 

“ I’ve had one to-day,” said Law- 
rence, affecting to laugh, for it was his 
instinct to try and turn off any conver- 
sation from a disagreeable subject. 

“ You’ll be all the better for another 
to-morrow,” answered Fanny. 

As she spoke to the artist, her tone 
changed so perceptibly that even the 
Miss Miners noticed it. Brinsley took 
the first opportunity of talking to Miss 
Cordelia, of whose admiration he was 
sure, and the rest of the dinner passed 
off in peace, Brinsley avoiding a re- 
newal of hostilities with something 
almost like fear, for he felt that the ex- 


1 12 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


traordinary young girl who knew so 
much about navigation was watching 
for another opportunity of humiliating 
him, and would not be merciful in 
using it. 

The change in her manner to him 
had been very sudden, as though she 
had on that particular day made up her 
mind about something concerning him. 
Hitherto she had treated him almost 
cordially, certainly with every appear- 
ance of liking him. He had even of 
late begun to fancy that her colour 
heightened when he entered the room, 
— a phenomenon which, if real, was at- 
tributable rather to another cause, and 
connected with Lawrence’s presence in 
the house. 

After dinner the whole party went 
out upon the verandah, a favourite ma- 
noeuvre of Miss Cordelia’s, whereby the 
society of Mr. Brinsley was not wasted 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


II3 

upon smoke and men’s talk in the din- 
ing-room. This evening, however, in- 
stead of sitting down at once in her 
usual place, Cordelia slipped her arm 
through Fanny’s, and led her off to the 
other side and down the steps into the 
garden. 

“The moonlight is so lovely,” said 
Miss Cordelia, “ and I want to talk to 
you. Let us walk a little — do you 
mind ? ” 

The two went along the path in 
silence, in and out among the trees. 
The moon was full. From the sea 
came up the sound of the tide, washing 
the smooth rocks at high water. The 
breeze had died away at sunset and the 
deep sky was cloudless. Here and 
there the greater stars twinkled softly, 
but the little ones were all lost in the 
moonlight, like diamonds in a pure foun- 
tain. Everything was asleep except the 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


II4 

watchful, wakeful sea. The two women 
stood still and looked across the lawn. 
At last Miss Miner spoke. 

“ Why were you so unkind to Mr. 
Brinsley to-night?” she asked in a low 
voice. 

Fanny glanced at her before she an- 
swered. The eldest Miss Miner’s face 
had once been almost beautiful. In 
the moonlight, the delicate, clearly 
chiselled features were lovely still, but 
a little ghostly, and the young girl saw 
that the fixed smile had disappeared 
for once, leaving a look of pain in its 
place. 

“ I didn’t mean to be unkind,” Fanny 
began. “That is,” she added quickly, 
correcting herself, “ I’m not quite sure 
of what I meant. I think I did mean 
to hurt him. He’s so strong, and he’s 
always showing that he despises Mr. 
Lawrence, because he isn’t an athlete. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


II5 

As though a man must be a prize- 
fighter to be nice ! ” 

“ Well — but — Mr. Lawrence doesn’t 
mind. You see how he takes it all. 
Why should you fight battles for him? ” 

“ Perhaps I shouldn’t. But — why 
should you take up the cudgels for 
Mr. Brinsley? He’s quite able to take 
care of himself, if he will only tell 
the truth.” 

“ If ! ” exclaimed Miss Cordelia, in 
ready resentment. “ He’s the most 
truthful man alive.” 

Oh ! And he told you he had been 
in the English navy.” 

“ What has that to do with it ? Of 
course he has, if he says so.” 

“ He’s unwise to say so, because he 
hasn’t,” answered Fanny, in her usual 
direct way. 

“ How in the world can you say that 
a man like Mr. Brinsley — an honour- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


I l6 

able man, I’m sure — is telling a delib- 
erate falsehood ? I’m surprised at you, 
Fanny — indeed I am ! It isn’t like 
you.” 

“ Did you ever know me to tell you 
anything that wasn’t exactly true?” 
asked the young girl, looking down into 
her elderly cousin’s sweet, sad face, for 
she was much the taller. 

“ No — of course not — but — ” 
“Well, Cousin Cordelia, I tell you 
that your Mr. Brinsley has never been 
in the English navy. I don’t say that 
I think so. I say that I know it. Will 
you believe me, or him? ” 

“ Oh, Fanny ! ” Miss Cordelia raised 
her eyes with a frightened glance. 

“ Not that it matters,” added Fanny, 
looking away across the moonlit lawn 
again. “ Who cares ? Only, it’s one 
of those lies that go against a man,” 
she continued after a short pause. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


II7 

“ A man may pretend that he has shot 
ten million grisly bears in his back 
yard, or hooked a salmon that weighed 
a hundred-weight — people will laugh 
and say that he’s a story-teller. It’s 
all right, you know — and nobody minds. 
But when a man says he’s been in the 
army or the navy, and hasn’t — people 
call him a liar and cut him. I don’t 
know why it’s so. I’m sure, but it is — 
and we all know it.” 

“Yes,” answered Cordelia, almost 
tremulously ; “ but you haven’t proved 
that Mr. Brinsley isn’t telling the 
truth — ” 

“ Oh yes, I have ! There never was 
a deep-sea sailor yet who had never 
heard of club-hauling a ship to save 
her. I know about those things. I 
always make navy officers talk to me 
about those things whenever I get a 
chance. Besides, I can prove it to 


Il8 LOVE IN IDLENESS 

you. Ask the first captain of a fishing- 
schooner you meet down at the land- 
ing what it means. But don’t tell me 
I don’t know — it’s too absurd.” 

Miss Cordelia looked down. Her 
hand still rested on Fanny’s arm, and 
it trembled now so that the young girl 
felt it. 

“What does it mean, then?” asked 
Cordelia, faintly. 

“ Oh, it’s a long operation to tell 
about. It’s when you’ve got a lee- 
shore in a gale, and you want to go 
about and can’t, because you miss 
stays every time, and you let go an 
anchor, and the ship swings to it, and 
just as she begins to get way on, you 
slip your chain, and she pays off on the 
other tack. Of course you lose your 
anchor.” 

“ Oh — you lose the anchor ? To 
save the ship? I see.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


I 19 

Exactly.” 

“ You lose the anchor to save the 
ship,” repeated Cordelia, softly, as 
though she were trying to remember 
the words for future use. “Shall we go 
back?” she suggested, rather abruptly. 

“ I wish you’d answer me one ques- 
tion first,” said Fanny. 

“Yes. What is it?” 

“ Why are you so awfully anxious to 
stand up for Mr. Brinsley? You’re not ■ 
in love with him, are you?” 

Cordelia started very perceptibly, and 
turned her face away. Then, all at 
once, she laughed a little hysterically. 

“In love? At my age?” 

And she laughed again, and laughed, 
strange to say, till she cried, clinging 
all the time to the young girl’s strong 
arm. Fanny did not ask any more 
questions as they walked slowly back 
to the house. 


CHAPTER VII. 


“ Come with me into the village, and 
help me to do errands,” said Fanny on 
the following morning, just as Lawrence 
was feeling for his pipe in his pocket 
after breakfast. “You can smoke till 
we get there. It wouldn't hurt you to 
smoke less, anyway.” 

They went down through the garden, 
fresh and dewy still from the short, cool 
night, towards the sea. 'Phe path to 
the village lies along a low sea-wall, just 
high enough and strong enough to keep 
the tide from the lawns. But the tide 
was beginning to run out at that hour, 
and was singing and rocking itself away 
from the shore, leaving the big loose 
stones and the chocolate-coloured rocks 
all wet and shining in the morning sun. 


120 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


21 


The breeze was springing up in the off- 
ing and would reach the land before 
long, kissing each island as it passed 
softly by, and gently breaking with 
dark blue the smoothly undulating 
water. 

The sun was almost behind the pair 
as they walked along the sands, and 
shone full upon the harbour as it came 
into view, lighting up the deep green of 
the islands between which passes the 
channel, and bringing up the warm 
brown of the soil through thick weaving 
spruces. The graceful yachts caught 
the sunshine, too, their hulls gleaming 
darkly, or dazzlingly white, their slender 
masts pencilled in light, against the 
trees, and standing out like threaded 
needles when they showed against the 
pale, clear sky. In the bright northern 
air, the artist would have complained that 
there was no atmosphere — no Mepth,’ 


122 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


nor ‘ distance,’ but only the distinct far- 
ness of the objects a long way off — 
nothing at all like ‘ atmospheric per- 
spective.’ 

“ Isn’t it a glorious day ! ” exclaimed 
Fanny, looking seaward at a white- 
sailed fishing-schooner, which scarcely 
moved in the morning air. 

“ It’s a little bit too swept and gar- 
nished,” answered Lawrence. “ That 
is — for a picture, you know. It’s bet- 
ter to feel than to look at, if you under- 
stand what I mean. It feels so northern, 
that when you look at it, it seems bare 
and unfinished without a little snow.” 

“ But you like it, don’t you? ” asked 
the young girl, in prompt protest. 

“ Of course I do. What a question ! 
I thought I’d been showing how much 
I liked it, ever since I got here.” 

“ I’m not sure that you show what 
you like and don’t like,” said Fanny, 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


123 


in a tone of reflexion. “ Perhaps it’s 
better not to.” 

“ You don’t, at all events. At least 

— aren’t you rather an inscrutable per- 
son? Of course I don’t know,” he 
added rather foolishly, pulling his wool- 
len cap over his eyes and glancing at 
her sideways. 

“ Inscrutable ! What a big word ! 
‘ The inscrutable ways of Providence ’ 

— that’s what they always say, don’t 
they? Still — if you mean that I don’t 
‘ tell,’ you’re quite right. I don’t — 
when I can keep my countenance. Do 
you ? It’s always far better not to tell. 
Besides, if you commit yourself to an 
opinion, you’re committing yourself to 
gaol.” 

“ What a way of putting it ! But it’s 
really true. I should so much like to 
ask you a question about one of your 
opinions.” 


124 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“Why don’t you?” asked Fanny, 
turning her eyes to his. 

“Oh — lots of reasons: I’m afraid, 
in the first place ; and then, I’m not 
sure you have one, and then — ” 

“ Say it all — I hate people who hesi- 
tate ! ” 

“Well — no. There’s a great deal 
more to say than I want to say. Let’s 
talk about the landscape.” 

“No. I want to know what the 
question is which you wished you might 
ask,” insisted Fanny. 

“ It’s about Mr. Brinsley,” said Law- 
rence, plunging. 

“Well, what about him?” Fanny’s 
tone changed perceptibly, and her ex- 
pression grew cold and forbidding. 

“ Nothing particular — unless it’s im- 
pertinent — so I won’t ask it.” 

“You won’t?” asked Fanny, slack- 
ening her pace and looking hard at 
him. “ Not if I ask you to? ” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


125 


“ No,” answered Lawrence. “ I’d 
oblige you by asking a different ques- 
tion, but not that one. You wouldn’t 
know the difference.” 

“That’s ingenuous, at all events.” 
She looked away again and laughed. 

“ I never fight when I can help it, 
and you looked dangerous just now. 
You always are, in one way or another.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“ Only that when you don’t happen 
to be frightening me out of my wits, you 
are charming me into a perfect idiot.” 

“Something between an express train 
and the Lorelei,” laughed Fanny. 

But the quick, girlish blood had 
sprung to her sunny cheeks and lin- 
gered a moment, as though it loved the 
light. They were now in the village — 
in the broad street where the shops are. 
At that hour there were many people 
moving about on foot and in every sort 


126 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


of vehicle, short of broughams and lan- 
daus. There was the smart couple in 
a high buckboard, just out for a morn- 
ing drive ; there was the elderly farmer 
with his buggy or his hooded cart — 
his wife seated beside him, with her 
queer, sad, winter-blighted face, and 
her decent, but dusty black frock ; — 
there was the young farmer ‘ sport ’ '' : 

driving his favourite trotting horse in }.. 
a sulky. And of pedestrians there was I , 
no end. A smart party bent on a day’s 
excursion by sea came down the board 
walk, brilliant in perfectly new blue |, i 
and white serge, with bits of splendid | i 
orange and red here and there, fresh } 
faces, light hearts, great appetites, and 
the most trifling of cares — the care for 
trifles themselves. Fanny nodded and 
smiled, and was smiled at, while Law- 
rence attempted to lift his soft woollen 
cap from his head with some sort of 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


127 


grace — a thing impossible, as men 
who wear soft woollen caps well know. 
But the air seemed lighter and brighter 
for so much youth laughing in it. 

Fanny dived into one shop after 
another, Lawrence following her, rather 
awkwardly, as a man always does under 
the circumstances, until he is old 
enough to find out that there is a time 
for watching as well as a time for talk- 
ing, and that more may be learned of 
a woman’s character from the way she 
treats shopkeepers than is generally 
supposed. Fanny showed surprising 
alternations of firmness and condescen- 
sion, for she had the gift of managing 
people and of getting what she wanted, 
which is a rare gift and one not to be 
despised. She asked very kindly after 
the fishmonger’s baby, but she did not 
hesitate to tell the grocer the hardest 
of truths about the butter. 


128 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ I always do my own marketing,” 
she said to Lawrence, in answer to his 
look of surprise. “ It amuses me, and 
I get much better things. My poor 
dear cousins don’t understand market- 
ing a bit — though they ought to. 
That’s the reason why they never get 
on, somehow. I believe marketing is 
the best school in the world for learn- • 
ing what’s worth having and what isn’t. 
Don’t you?” 

“I never had a chance to learn,” . 
laughed Lawrence. “ I wish you’d | 
teach me how to get on, as you call it.” * | 
“ Oh — it’s very easy ! You only t ■: 
need know exactly what you want, and * ; 
then try to get it as hard as you can. ^ \ 
Most people don’t know, and don’t i ; 
try.” ^ 

“ For that matter I know perfectly ■ 
well what I want.” ■ 

“ Then why don’t you try and get M 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


129 


it?” asked Fanny, pausing at the door 
of another shop as though interested 
in his answer. 

“ Fm not sure that it’s in the mar- 
ket,” answered the young man, his eyes 
in hers. 

“Have you enquired?” Fanny’s 
mouth twitched with the coming smile. 

“No — not exactly. Fm trying to 
find out by inspection.” 

“ If you don’t think it’s likely to be 
too dear, you’d better ask — whatever 
it is.” 

“ Money couldn’t buy it. Besides, 
I’ve got none,” added Lawrence. 

“ You might get it on credit,” said 
Fanny. “ But I think it’s very doubt- 
ful.” 

I’hereupon she entered the shop, and 
Lawrence followed her, meditating 
deeply upon his chances, and asking 
himself whether he should run the great 


130 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


risk at once, or wait and watch Brins- 
ley. To tell the truth, he thought his 
own chances very small ; for he under- 
estimated all his advantages by looking 
at them in the light of his present pov- 
erty, not seeing that in so doing he might 
be underestimating Fanny Trehearne as 
well. A somewhat excessive caution, 
which sometimes goes with timidity, 
though not at all of the sort which pro- 
duces cowardice, is often the result of 
an education which has not brought a 
man closely into competition with other 
men. No one in common sense, save 
the Miss Miners and Lawrence himself, 
could have imagined that Brinsley had 
a chance against him. For anything 
that people knew, Brinsley might turn 
out to be an adventurer of the worst 
kind, whereas Lawrence was of good 
birth, a man of whom many knew who 
he was, and whence he came, and that 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


I3I 

he had as good a right to ask for Fan- 
ny’s hand as any man. He was poor 
just now, but no one believed that his 
rich uncle, a childless widower of fifty- 
five, would marry again, and Lawrence 
was sure to have money in the end, 
though he might wait thirty years for it. 

As for Brinsley, Fanny Trehearne 
either could not or would not pretend 
that she liked him, even in the most 
moderate degree of distant liking, after 
she had satisfied herself that he was 
not a truthful person in those matters 
in which truth decides the right of a 
man to be considered honourable. 
Being, on the whole, more careful than 
most people about the accuracy of 
what she said, she was less inclined to 
make allowances for others than a 
great many of her contemporaries. 
Besides, Brinsley had not only told a 
lie, which was mean in itself, but he 


132 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


had allowed himself to be found out, 
which Fanny considered contemptible. 

Up to this time she had seemed to 
think him very pleasant company and 
not a bad addition to the society of 
the place. 

“ He’s so good-looking ! ” she had 
often said to the approving Miss Miners. 
“ And he has good manners, and knows 
how to come into a room, and how to 
sit down and get up — and do lots of 
things,” she added vaguely. 

In this opinion her three old- maid 
cousins fully concurred, and they were 
quite ready to say as much in his 
favour as Fanny could have heard 
without laughing. They were therefore 
greatly distressed when she changed 
her mind. 

“ He’s handsome,” Fanny now ad- 
mitted. “ But he’s a little too showy. 
I’ve seen men like him at races, but 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


133 


they were not the men who were intro- 
duced to me. I don’t think they knew 
anybody I knew — that sort of man, 
don’t you know? And his English ac- 
cent isn’t quite English, and I don’t 
like his little flat whiskers, and his hands 
irritate me. Besides, he said he had 
been in the navy, and now he admits 
that he never was. That’s enough.” 

“ My dear Fanny,” Cordelia an- 
swered, on such occasions, “ there was 
a misunderstanding about that, you 
know. He was in the navy, since he 
was an officer of Marines, but of course 
he wasn’t expected to know — ” 

“ The Marines ! ” exclaimed Fanny, 
contemptuously. “ It’s only a way of 
getting out of it. I’m sure 1 ” 

Thereupon the three Miss Miners 
told her that she was very unjust and 
prejudiced, as they retired together to 
praise Mr. Brinsley, out of hearing of 


134 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


their young cousin’s tart comment. 
Miss Cordelia had made it all right 
by giving the man an opportunity of 
justifying himself after he had privately 
explained to her that the Marines were 
an integral part of the navy, but that 
they were not called upon to know 
anything about navigation, — a fact 
which must account for his ignorance. 

He had very firm friends, to say the 
least of it, in the three spinsters, who 
might have been said to worship the 
ground on which he walked, and who 
thought it a sin and a shame that 
Fanny should treat him as she did. 
As for young Lawrence, he looked on, 
with his observant artist’s eyes, and 
never mentioned Brinsley, except to 
Fanny herself. For he was not at all 
lacking in tact, however deficient he 
might be in the manly accomplish- 
ments.. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 1 35 

“ Do you know,” Fanny began, one 
day when they were walking in the 
woods, “ I don’t half mind you’re being 
such a bad hand at things. It’s funny. 
I thought I should, at first — but I 
don’t.” 

“ I’m awfully glad,” answered Law- 
rence, not finding anything else to say 
to express his gratitude. 

‘LOh, you may well be ! ” laughed 
Fanny. “ I don’t forgive everybody for 
being a duffer. And that’s what you 
are, you know. You don’t mind my 
sayifig so ? ” 

“Oh no, not at all.” The tone in 
which he spoke did not express much 
conviction, however. 

“ I believe you do,” said Fanny, 
thoughtfully. 

They were following a narrow path 
which led upwards along the bank of a 
brook under overarching trees. Here 


136 LOVE IN IDLENESS 

and there the bank had fallen away, 
and the woodmen had laid down ‘ slabs ’ 
of the rippings first taken off by the 
saw-mill in squaring timber. It was 
damp under foot, for it had lately 
rained, and the wet, chocolate-coloured 
dead leaves of the previous year filled 
the chinks between the bits of wood, 
and sometimes lay all over them, a 
slippery mass. It was still and hot 
and damp all through the thick growth 
on the midsummer’s afternoon. The 
whispered mystery of countless living 
things filled the quiet air with a vibra- 
tion more felt than heard, which over- 
came the silence, but did not break 
the stillness. 

The path was very narrow, and Fanny 
had to walk before her companion. 
Their voices seemed to echo back to 
them from very near, as they talked, 
for amongst the trees the rich under- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


137 


growth grew man-high. On their right, 
below them, the brook laughed softly 
to itself as a faun might laugh, drow- 
sily, half asleep in a hollow of the 
deep woods. 

And then, through the warm-breath- 
ing secret places, where all that was 
living was growing fiercely in the sud- 
den summer, stole the heart-thrilling 
fragrance of all that lived, than which 
nothing more surely stirs young blood 
in the glory of the year. 

For some minutes the pair walked 
on in silence, Fanny leading. The 
young man watched the strong, lithe 
figure of the girl as she moved swiftly 
and sure-footed before him. Suddenly 
she stopped, without turning round, 
and she seemed to be listening. A low 
ray of sunlight ran quivering through 
the trees and played with a crisp ring- 
let of her hair, too full of life and 


138 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


Strength to be smoothed to dull order 
with the rest. 

“ What is it? ” asked Lawrence, in a 
low voice, watching her. 

“ I thought I heard some one in the 
woods,” she answered quickly, and then 
listened again. 

Not a sound broke the dream-like 
stillness. 

“ I’m sure I heard something,” said 
Fanny. Then she laughed a little. 
“ Besides,” she added, “ it’s very likely. 
It’s awfully hot. Here’s a good place 
to sit down.” 

It was not a particularly good place, 
being damp and sloping, and Lawrence 
planted his heels firmly amongst the 
wet, dead leaves to keep himself from 
slipping down into the path as he sat 
beside her. 

There’s always something going 
on in the woods,” she said softly and 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


139 


'dreamily. ‘‘ The trees talk t© each 
•other all day long, and the squirrels sit 
and crack nuts while they listen to the 
'Conversation. I like the woods. Some- 
how one never feels alone when one 
gets where things grow — does one? ” 

“ I don’t mind being alone when I 
can’t be — I mean — ” Lawrence did 
not finish his sentence, but bent down 
and picked up a twig from the ground. 

Isn’t it funny ! ” he exclaimed, twist- 
ing it in his hands. “ AH the bark’s 
loose, and turns round.” 

“ Of course — it’s an -old twig, and 
it’s wet. When don’t you mind being 
alone? You were saying something — 
‘‘ when you couldn’t be with ’ — some- 
thing, or somebody.” 

“ Oh — you know ! What’s the use 
of my saying it?” Lawrence kept his 
■ eye on the twig. 

“ I don’t know, and if I want you to 


140 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


say anything, that’s the use,” answered 
Fanny, whose prose style, so to say, 
was direct if it was anything. 

“ Yes — but you see — I didn’t 
mean anything in particular.” He 
broke the twig in two and tossed it 
over the path into the brook below. 

Fanny changed her position a little, 
leaning forward and clasping her gloved ' 
hands round her knees. 

“ You’re very nice, you know,” she 
said meditatively. “I like you.” 

“ Because I don’t answer your ques- 
tions?” asked Lawrence, looking at her 
face, which was half turned from him. 

“Yes. That’s one of the reasons.” 

“ It’s a very funny one. I don’t see 
much reason in it, I confess.” 

“ Don’t you? Don’t you know that 
a woman sometimes likes a man for 
what he doesn’t say?” 

“ I never thought of it in that way. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


I4I 

I daresay you’re right. You ought to 
know much better than I do. Espe- 
cially if you really like me, as you say 
you do.” 

Oh — I’m honest. I never said 
I’d been in the navy ! ” Fanny laughed. 
“ Besides, if I didn’t like you, why 
should I say so ? Just to say some- 
thing civil ? The way Mr. Brinsley 
does? ” 

“ Brinsley’s a horror ! Don’t talk 
about him — especially here.” 

I don’t mean to. I hate him. 
But if we were going to talk about him, 
this would be a good place — one’s 
sure that he’s not just round the 
corner of the verandah making one of 
my three cousins miserable.” 

“ How do you mean ? ” 

‘‘Why — they all love him. Can’t 
you see it? I don’t mean figuratively. 
Not a bit. They’re in love with him, 
poor dears ! ” 


142 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Nonsense ! not really?” Lawrence 
laughed incredulously. 

“Yes — really. It’s a rather dis- 
mal sort of love — they’ve kept their 
hearts in pickle for such an age, you 
know — old pickles aren’t good, either. 
I’ve no patience with old maids who 
fall in love and make fools of them- 
selves ! ” 

“ Perhaps they can’t help it,” sug- 
gested the young man. “ Nobody can 
help falling in love, you know.” 

“No,” answered Fanny, rather 
doubtfully. “ Perhaps not. I don’t 
know. It depends.” 

“ People don’t generally try to keep 
themselves from falling in love,” re- 
marked Lawrence,, with the air of a 
philosopher. “ It’s more apt to be the 
other way. They are generally trying 
to make some one else fall in love with' 
them. That’s the hard thing.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


143 


“ Is it? ” Fanny smiled. “ Perhaps 
it is,” she added, after a pause. “ I’d 
like to tell you something — ” 

She hesitated and stopped. Law- 
rence looked at her, but did not speak, 
expecting her to go on. The silence 
continued for some time. Once or 
twice Fanny turned and met his eyes, 
and her lips moved as though she were 
just going to say something. She 
seemed to be in doubt. 

“ I don’t believe in friendship, and 
I don’t believe in promises, — and I 
don’t believe much in anything,” she 
said at last, in magnificent generaliza- 
tion. “ But I’d like to tell you, all the 
same. Do you mind ? ” 

“I won’t repeat it if you do,” said 
Lawrence, simply. 

“ No — I don’t believe you will. 
You see I haven’t any friends, so I 
never tell things, — at least, not much. 


144 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


I don’t believe much in telling, any- 
way. Do you?” 

Not if you mean to keep a secret.” 
“ Oh — well — this isn’t exactly a se- 
cret — only I don’t want any one to 
know it. Yes, I know ! You laugh 
because I’m going to tell you. But 
you’re different, somehow — ” 

“ Am I?” 

“ Oh yes, — you don’t count ! ” 
Lawrence’s face fell a little at this 
last remark, and there was silence again 
for a few moments. 

“ I’m not sure that I’ll tell you, after 
all,” said Fanny, at last. 

The quiet lids were half closed over 
the grey eyes, and she seemed to be 
thinking out something. Lawrence was 
unconsciously wondering why he did 
• not think the white lashes ugly, espe- 
cially when she had just told him that 
he did not ‘ count.’ 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


H5 

“Are you sure you won’t tell?” 
asked the young girl, after another long 
pause. 

“ If you don’t want me to, of course 
I won’t,” answered Lawrence, mechan- 
ically. 

“ It’s a sort of confession,” said 
Fanny. “ That’s the reason why I 
don’t like to tell you. It’s cowardly 
to be afraid of confessing that one’s 
been an idiot, so I am going to do it 
at once and get it over.” 

“ It’s a startling confession ! ” laughed 
Lawrence, softly. “ I don’t believe it. 
Is that all? ” 

“ If you laugh at me, I won’t tell you 
anything more. Then you’ll be sorry.” 

“ Shall I?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ All right ! I’m serious now,” said 
Lawrence. 

“ Don’t you want to smoke? ” asked 


146 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


Fanny, suddenly. “ I. wish you would. 
I should be less — less nervous, you 
know.” 

“ What a curious idea ! But I’ll 
smoke if you like.” 

He proceeded to fill and light a big 
brier-root pipe. 

“ I like the smell of a pipe,” said 
Fanny, watching the operation. “ I’m 
so tired of the everlasting cigarette.” 

“ I’m ready,” Lawrence said, puffing 
slowly into the still, hot air. 

“ Are you sure you won’t laugh at 
me? Well, I’ll tell you. I liked Mr. 
Brinsley awfully — at first.” 

Lawrence looked at her quickly and 
took his pipe from his mouth. 

“Not really?” he exclaimed, only 
half-interrogatively, but with a change 
of colour. “ But then — well — I don’t 
suppose you mean anything particular 
by that,” he added, to comfort himself. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


147 


You don’t mean that you — He 
stopped. 

Fanny nodded slowly^ and the blush 
that rose in her face reddened her sunny 
complexion. 

“ Yes. That’s what I mean. I cared 
for him, you know, — that sort of thing.” 

“ It hasn’t taken you long to get over 
it, at all events,” answered Lawrence, 
gravely, and wondering inwardly why 
she made the extraordinary confession, 
seeing that it hurt him and could do 
her no good. 

“ No — It hasn’t taken long, has it? 
That’s what frightens me. If I weren’t 
frightened, I shouldn’t talk to you about 
it.” 

“ I don’t understand — why are you 
frightened ? Especially since you’ve 
got over it. I don’t see — ” 

“ I thought you might,” said Fanny, 
enigmatically. 


148 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


A long silence followed, this time. 
Lawrence crossed his hands on his 
knees as Fanny was doing, holding his | 
pipe, which was going out. They both 
sat staring at the opposite bank of the 
brook. ' : 

The vital loveliness of the still woods 
was all around them, whispering in their 
young ears, breathing into their young ^ 

nostrils the breath of nature’s life, 
caressing them with bountiful warmth. |. 

They sat side by side, very near, star- ,| 
ing at the opposite bank, and for a long I 
time no words passed their lips. At | 
last the young girl spoke in a low and | 
almost monotonous tone. | 

“ He has an influence over people 1 

who come near him,” she said. “ Be- J 

sides, that kind of man appeals to me. a 

It’s natural, isn’t it? I’m so fond of 
all sorts of things out-of-doors, that I 
can’t help admiring a man who can do 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


149 


everything so well. And he’s a splendid 
creature. You’ve never seen him ride. 
You don’t know — it’s wonderful ! 1 

wish you could see him on that thor- 
oughbred Teddy Van De Water has 
brought up this summer — Teddy’s a 
good rider, but he can’t do anything 
with the mare. You ought to see Brins- 
ley — Mr. Brinsley — you’d understand 
better.” 

“fBut I understand perfectly, as it 
is,” said Lawrence, rather gloomily. 

Do you ? 1 wonder whether you 

really do. Do you think there’s any — 
any excuse for me? ” 

The words were spoken in a faltering 
shamefaced way very unlike Fanny’s 
usual manner. 

“ As though you needed any excuse 
for taking a fancy to any one who 
pleases you ! ” answered Lawrence, 
rather coldly. “Aren’t you perfectly 
free to like anybody who turns up ? ” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


150 

During the pause which followed, he 
slowly relighted his pipe, which had 
quite gone out by this time. 

“ I was afraid you wouldn’t under- 
stand,” said Fanny, in a disappointed 
tone. 

But I do — ” 

‘‘No — not what I mean. I hate 
explaining things, but I shall have to.” 

Louis Lawrence wondered vaguely 
what there could be to explain, and, if 
there were anything, why she should 
be so anxious to explain to him in 
particular. 


CHAPTER VIIL 


“ It was in this way,” said Fanny. 
‘‘ Mr, Brinsley brought a letter of 
introduction from Cousin Frank. You 
know who Frank is, don’t you? He’s 
the brother of the three Miss Miners.” 

“ Of course,” nodded Lawrence. 

Everybody knows Frank Miner.” 

And he knows everybody. But he 
didn’t say much in his note, and Cor- 
delia has written to him since, because 
she wants to know all about Mr. Brins- 
ley, and it appears that Frank has only 
met him once or twice at a club, and 
doesn’t know anything about him. 
However, it doesn’t matter ! The main 
point is that he called the day after 
we got here, and in twenty-four hours 
we were all in love with him.” 


5 


152 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Please don’t include yourself,” said 
Lawrence, his delicate face betraying 
that he winced. 

I will include myself, because it’s 
true,” answered Fanny, very much in 
earnest. “ I shouldn’t put it just in 
that way about myself, perhaps, — but 
I took a fancy to him, and I took him 
to drive, and I found that he could 
drive quite as well as I, and we went out 
riding with a party, and he rides like an 
angel — he really does — it’s divine. 
And then I tried him in the boat, and 
he was good at that. So I began to 
like him very much.” 

‘‘They’re all excellent reasons for 
liking a man,” observed Lawrence, 
with a little contempt. 

“ Don’t scoff at things you can’t do 
yourself,” said Fanny, severely. “ It’s 
not in good taste. Besides, I don’t 
care. All women admire men who are 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


53 


Stronger, and quicker, and better with 
their hands than other men. One 
always thinks they must be braver, 
too.” 

“ Yes, that’s true,” assented Law- 
rence, seeking to retrieve himself by 
meekness. 

“ And they generally are. It takes 
courage to ride well, and it needs nerve 
to handle a boat in a squall. I don’t 
mean to say that you can’t be brave if 
you don’t know-how to do those things. 
That would be nonsense. You — for 
instance — you could learn. Only 
nobody has ever taught you anything, 
and you’re getting old.” 

Lawrence laughed outright, and for- 
got his ill-humour in a moment. 

Oh — I don’t mean really old,” 
said Fanny, immediately. I only 
mean that one ought to learn when 
one is a child, as I did. Then it’s no 


154 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


trouble, you see — and one never 
forgets. Now, Mr. Brinsley began 
young — ” 

“Yes,” interrupted the young man, 
“ I should say so. I’m sorry I didn’t.” 

“ So am I. It would have been so 
nice to do things — ” 

She stopped abruptly, and pulled up 
a blade of rank grass, which she pro- 
ceeded to twist thoughtfully round her 
finger. 

“ I shouldn’t like you to think I was 
a flirt,” she said, suddenly turning her 
grey eyes upon him. 

He met her glance curiously, being 
considerably surprised by her remark. 

“ Because I sometimes think I am, 
myself,” she added, still looking at 
him. “Do you think so?” she asked 
earnestly. “What is a flirt, anyway?” 

“A woman who draws a man on for 
the pleasure of breaking his heart, I 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


155 


suppose,” answered Lawrence, keeping 
his eyes fixed intently on hers. 

“Then I’m only half a flirt,” said 
Fanny, “because I only draw a man 
on, without meaning to break any- 
body’s heart.” 

“ Don’t,” said Lawrence. “ It hurts, 
you know.” 

“ I wonder — ” The young girl 
laughed a little, and turned away from 
his eyes. 

“ What?” 

“Whether it really hurts.” She bit 
the end of the grass blade, and slowly 
tore it with her teeth, looking dreamily 
across the brook. 

“ Don’t try it, at all events.” 

“ Mr. Brinsley doesn’t seem to mind.” 

“ Brinsley isn’t a human being,” said 
Lawrence, savagely. 

“ What is he, then? ” 

“ A fraud — of some sort. I don’t 


care. I hate him ! ” 


LQVE IN IDLENESS 


1:56 


“You’re hard on Mr. Brinsley,” 
observed Fanny, slowly, and watching 
her companion sideways* 

“ Considering what, you’ve been say- 
ing about him — ” 

“ I said nothing about him except 
that I began by liking him awfully.” 

“ Well — you left the rest to my 
imagination. I did as well as I could. 
If you didn’t hate him yourself, you’d 
hardly have been telling me all this, 
would you ? ” 

“ Qh — I don’t know. 1 might be 
going to ask. your advice about — 
about himi.” 

“ Take him out in your boat and 
drown him,” suggested Lawrence. 
“‘That’s: my advice about him.” 

“ What has he done to you, Mr. 
Lawrence?” enquired. Fanny,, gravely. 
“ Why do you hate him so ? ” 

“ Why ? It’s plain enough^ it seems 


LOVE IN: IDLENESS 


157 


to me — plain as a — what do you call 
the thing?” 

“ Plain as a marlinespike, you mean. 
Only it isn’t. I want to know two 
things. Do you think I’m a flirt? 
And why do you want me to murder 
poor, innocent Mr. Brinsley? Do you 
mind answering?” 

Lawrence’s dark eyes began to gleam 
angrily. He bit his pipe and pulled at 
it, though it had gone out ; then he 
took it from his lips and answered 
deliberately. 

‘Hf you are: a flirt. Miss Trehearne, 
I don’t wish Brinsley any further dam- 
age. He’ll do very well in your hands, 
I’m sure. I have no anxiety.” 

wouldn’t hurt a fly,” said Fanny. 
“If I liked the fly,” she added. 

“ I believe the spider said something 
to the same effect, when he invited the 
fly into his parlour.” 


158 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


At this a dark flush rose in the girl’s 
cheeks. 

‘‘You’re rude, Mr. Lawrence,” she 
said. 

“I’m sorry. Miss Trehearne — but 
you’re unkind, so you’ll please to excuse 
me.” 

Instead of flushing, as she did, 
Lawrence turned slowly pale, as was his 
nature. 

“Even if I were, — but I’m not, — 
that’s no reason why you should be 
rude.” 

“I didn’t mean to be rude,” an- 
swered Lawrence. “ I don’t see what 
I said that was so very dreadful.” 

“ It was much worse than anything I 
said,” retorted Fanny, biting her blade 
of grass again. “ Because I didn’t say 
anything at all, you know. Oh, well — 
if you’ll say you’re sorry, we’ll bury 
it.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


159 


“ I’m sorry,” said Lawrence, without 
the least show of contrition. 

I was going to tell you such lots of 
things about myself,” said the young 
girl. “You’ve made me forget them 
all. What was I talking about when we 
began to fight ? I began by saying that 
I liked you, and you’ve been horrid ever 
since. I won’t say that again, at all 
events.” 

“ Excuse me — you began by saying 
that you’d liked Brinsley — liked him 
awfully, you said. It must have been 
awful — anything connected with Brins- 
ley is necessarily awful.” 

“ There you go again. Don’t bolt so 
— it makes bad running. I told you 
why I’d liked him so much at first, and 
you admitted that it was natural. Do 
you remember that? Well — that isn’t 
all. After I liked him, I began to care 
for him. I told you that, too. Horrid 
of me, wasn’t it?” 


i6o 


LOVE IN: IDLENESS 


Horrid ! ” 

“ I wish you wouldn’t agree with me 
all the time!” exclaimed Fanny, im- 
patiently. You know I really did care 
— a little. And then one day in the 
catboat, he asked me — ” She stopped 
and looked at Lawrence. 

“ To marry you ? Why don’t you say 
it? It wouldn’t surprise me a bit.” 

“ No,” said Fanny, slowly, he didn’t 
ask me to marry him.” 

“ In Heaven’s name, what did he ask 
you? ” enquired Lawrence, exasperated 
to impatience. 

“ Oh — I don’t know. It was some- 
thing about the channel between Bar 
and Sheep, I believe. Nothing very 
important, anyway. I’m not sure that 
I could remember, if I tried.” 

“ Then — excuse me, but what’s the 
point? ” 

“Oh — I know ! ” exclaimed Fanny, 


LOVE IN IDLENESS l6l 

as though suddenly recollecting some- 
thing. “ Not that it matters much, but 
I like to be accurate. It was about the 
bell buoy off Sheep Porcupine. You 
know, I showed it to you the other day. 
Well — I told him how it had been 
carried away in a storm some time ago, 
and that this was a new one. And the 
next day I heard him telling Augusta 
all about it, as though he had known 
before, you see.” 

“ Well — that wasn’t exactly a crime,” 
observed Lawrence, who could not un- 
derstand at all. ‘‘ You’d told him — ” 
Yes, but he said he remembered 
the old one. That was impossible, 
as he hadn’t known anything about 
it. It was a little slip, but it made 
me open my eyes and watch him. I 
used to think he was perfection until 
then.” 

Oh, I see ! That was when you first 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


162 

began to find out that he wasn’t quite 
straight.” 

“ Exactly. It made all the difference. 
I’ve caught him out more than once 
since then. The other night, it was too 
much for me, when he talked about the 
navy — so I promptly smashed him. 
He knows that I know, now.” 

“ I should think so. All the same — 
I don’t mean to be rude this time. Miss 
Trehearne — ” 

“ Be careful ! ” 

“No — I’ll risk it. Just now when 
you said he had ‘ asked you ’ — you 
stopped short. You knew I should 
believe that you had been going to say 
that he had asked you to marry him, 
didn’t you?” 

“Oh, I know ! I couldn’t help it — 
I believe I really am a flirt, after all.” 

“ I shouldn’t like to believe it,” said 
Lawrence, gravely. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


163 

“Nor I — either. I only wanted to 
see how you’d look if you thought he’d 
offered himself just then.” 

“Just then! Do you mean to say 
that he has offered himself at any other 
time? ” 

“Now you’re rude again — only, I 
forgive you, because you don’t know 
that you are. It’s rude to ask such 
questions — so I’ll be polite and refuse 
to answer. Not that there’s any good 
reason why he shouldn’t have asked me 
to marry him, you know. The fact that 
you hate him isn’t a reason.” 

“ But you do, yourself — ” 

“ Not at all. At least, I haven’t said 
so. I wish you’d listen to me, Mr. 
Lawrence, instead of interrupting me 
with questions every other moment. 
How in the world am I to make a con- 
fession, if you won’t let me say two 
words? ” 


164 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Are you going to make a confes- 
sion?” asked Lawrence, incredulously. 
“ It’s all chaff, you know ! ” 

Fanny turned her cool eyes upon 
him instantly. 

‘‘There’s a lot besides chaff,” she 
said, in a very different tone. “ I can 
be in earnest, too — when I care.” 

She certainly emphasized the last 
three words in a way which might have 
meant much, accompanied as they were 
by her steady look. Lawrence felt him- 
self growing a little pale again. 

“Do you care?” he asked, and his 
voice shook perceptibly. 

“ For Mr. Brinsley ? ” enquired Fanny, 
instantly changing her tone again and 
beginning to laugh. 

“ No — for me.” 

“ For you ! Oh dear, what :a ques- 
tion ! ” She laughed outright. 

Lawrence leaned down and knocked 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 1 65 

the ashes out of his pipe against the 
toe of his heavy walking-shoe without 
saying a word. Then he put the pipe 
into his pocket. She watched him. 

“You’ve no right to be angry this 
time,” she said. “ But you are,” 

The young man faced her quietly 
and waited a moment before he spoke. 

“You’re playing with me,” he said, 
calmly and without emphasis, as stating 
a fact. 

“ Of course I am ! ” laughed Fanny 
Trehearne. “What did you expect? 
But I’m sorry that you’ve found it out,” 
she added, with appalling cynicism. 
“ It won’t be fun any more.” 

“ Unless we both play,” suggested 
Lawrence, who had either recovered 
his temper very quickly, or possessed 
a better control over it than Fanny had 
supposed. 

“ All right ! ” she exclaimed cheer- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


1 66 

fully. “ Let’s play — let us play. That 
sounds solemn, somehow — I wonder 
why? Oh — of course — it’s like ‘ Let 
us pray ’ in church.” 

Lawrence laughed drily. 

“ Let us pray beforehand, for the one 
who gets the worst of it,” he said. “ He 
or she will need it. But I shall win at 
the game, you know. That’s a fore- 
gone conclusion.” 

Fanny was surprised and amused at 
the confidence he suddenly affected — 
very unlike his habitual modesty and 
self-effacement. 

“ You seem pretty sure of yourself,”' 
she answered. “ What shall the for- 
feit be, as they say in the children’s 
games? ” 

“To marry or not to marry, at the 
discretion of the winner. I think that’s 
fair, don’t you? I shouldn’t like to 
propose anything serious — the head 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 1 67 

of Roger Brinsley in a charger, for in- 
stance.” 

Fanny laughed again. 

“Yes, it’s all very well!” she pro- 
tested. “ But of course the one who 
loses will be in earnest, and the one 
who wins will not.” 

“ He may be, by that time,” sug- 
gested Lawrence. 

“ Don’t say ‘ he,’ so confidently — I 
mean to win. Besides, are we starting 
fair? Of course I don’t care an atom 
for you, but don’t you care for me — 
just a little ? ” 

“ I ! ” exclaimed Lawrence. “ What 
an idea ! ” He laughed quite as natu- 
rally as Fanny herself. “ Do you think 
that a man in love would propose such a 
game as we are talking about?” he asked. 

“ Fm sure I don’t know what to 
think,” answered the young girl. “ Per- 
haps I shall know in a day or two.” 


68 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


She looked down, quite grave again, 
and pulled a bit of fern from the bank, 
and crushed it in her hand, and then 
smelled it. 

“Don’t you like sweet fern?” she 
asked, holding it out to him. “ I love 
it ! ” 

“That’s why you crush it, I sup- 
pose,” said Lawrence. 

“ It doesn’t smell sweet unless you 
do. Oh — I see ! You were begin- 
ning to play the game. Very well. 
Why should we lose time about it? 
But I wish it were a little better de- 
fined. What is it we’re going to do? 
Won’t you explain? I’m so stupid 
about these things. Are we going to 
flirt for a bet ? ” 

“ What a speech 1 ” 

“ Because it’s a plain one ? Is that 
why you object to it? After all, that’s 
what we said.” 


LOVE, IN IDLENESS 


169 


“ We only said we’d play,” answered 
Lawrence. “ Whichever ends by car- 
ing must agree to marry the winner, 
if required. But I’m afraid the time 
is too short,” he added, more gravely. 

I’ve only a week more.” 

“ Only a week ! ” exclaimed Fanny, 
in a tone of disappointment. “ Why, 
I thought there was ever so much more. 
That isn’t nearly time enough.” 

“ We must play faster — and hope 
for ‘ situations,’ as they call them on 
the stage.” 

“ Oh — the situation is bad enough, 
as it is,” answered the young girl, with 
a change of manner that surprised her 
companion. “If you only knew ! ” 

“ Was that what you were going to 
tell me about?” asked Lawrence, 
quickly, and with renewed interest. 
“ I thought you were making game 
of me.” 


170 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“That’s the trouble! You’ll never 
believe that I’m in earnest, now. 
That’s the worst of practical jokes. 
Come along 1 We must be going 
home. The sun’s behind the hill and 
ever so low, I’m sure. We shan’t get 
home before dusk. How sweet that 
fern smells ! Give it back to me, won’t 
you?” 

They rose and began to walk home- 
ward in the warm shadow of the woods. 
As before, Fanny went first along the 
narrow path, and Lawrence, following 
close behind her, and watching the 
supple grace of her as she moved, 
breathed in also the intoxicating per- 
fume of the aromatic sweet fern which 
she still carried in her hand. 


CHAPTER IX. 


On the following afternoon Fanny 
Trehearne announced her intention of 
riding with Mr. Brinsley. 

‘‘ rd take you, too,” she said to 
Lawrence, with a singularly cold stare. 

Only as you can’t ride much, you 
wouldn’t enjoy it, you know.” 

Certainly not,” answered Lawrence, 
returning her glance with all coolness. 

I shouldn’t enjoy it at all.” 

“ You might take my cousins out in 
the boat, instead.” 

“Are they tired of life?” enquired 
the young man, smiling. “ No. I want 
to make a sketch in the woods. I’ll 
go out by myself, thank you.” 

“ Do you mean to sketch the place 
where we stopped yesterday ? ” 

171 


172 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Oh no — Pm going in quite another 
direction. I can’t exactly explain where 
it is, because I’ve such a bad memory 
for names of roads, and all that. But 
I can find it.” 

Miss Cordelia Miner looked up from 
the magazine she was reading. 

“ You’re not going to ride alone with 
Mr. Brinsley, are you?” she asked 
suddenly. 

“Why not?” asked Fanny. “I 
don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t, 
It’s. safer than riding alone, isn’t it? ” 

“ I confess, I don’t like the idea,’ 
said Miss Cordelia. “ It looks as 
though there were something.” 

“ Something of what kind ? ” Fanny 
watched Lawrence’s face. 

“Something — well — not really an 
engagement — but — ” 

“ Well — why shouldn’t ! be engaged 
to Mr. Brinsley, if I like?” enquired 
the young girl, arching her brows. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


173 


“ Why, Fanny ! I’m surprised ! ” 
And, indeed, Miss Miner seemed so, 
for she almost sprang out of her 
chair. 

I don’t know why you need be hor- 
rified, though,” returned Fanny, calmly. 
“ Should you be shocked if any one 
said that you were engaged to Mr. 
Brinsley? What’s the matter with him, 
anyway?” she demanded, dropping 
into her favourite slang. “You’d be 
proud to be engaged to him — so would 
Elizabeth — so would Augusta ! Then 
why shouldn’t I be proud if 1 can get 
him ? I’m sure, he’s awfully good-look- 
ing, and he rides — like an angel.” 

“ An angel jockey,” suggested Law- 
rence, without a smile. 

“ Not at all ! ” exclaimed Fanny. 
“ He rides like a gentleman and not 
in the least like a jockey.” 

Miss Cordelia had risen from her 


174 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


chair, and turned her back on the 
young people. 

“ You’ve no right to say such things 
to me, Fanny,” she said, going slowly 
towards the window. Her voice shook. 

The young girl saw that she was 
deeply hurt, and followed her quickly. 

“ I didn’t mean to be horrid ! ’.’ said 
Fanny, penitently. “ I was only laugh- 
ing, you know, and of course I shall 
take Stebbins. And I’m not engaged 
to Mr. Brinsley at all.” 

“ Why didn’t you say so at once ? ” 
asked Cordelia, half choking, and turn- 
ing away her face. 

Fanny, unseen by her cousin, glanced 
at Lawrence, and then at the door, and 
the young man departed immediately, 
leaving the two cousins to make 
peace. 

He did not remain long in the house. 
Thrusting a sketch-book and a pencil 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


175 


into his pocket, with his pipe and 
pouch, he went out without seeing 
Fanny again, taking her at her word 
with regard to her plans for the after- 
noon. An hour later, he was seated 
under a tree high upon the side of 
the hill and almost out of sight 
of the Otter Cliff road. There was 
nothing particular in the way of a 
view from that point, but there were 
endless trees, and Lawrence amused 
himself in making a rough study of a 
mixed group of white pines, firs, and 
hackmatacks. 

He did not draw very carefully, nor 
even industriously, and more than once 
he stopped working altogether for a 
quarter of an hour at a time.. His 
principal object in coming had been to 
get out of the way just a little more 
promptly and completely than Fanny 
could have expected. His thoughts 


176 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


were much more concerned with her 
than with what he was doing. 

Naturally enough, he was trying to 
understand the real bent of the girl’s 
feelings. Setting aside the absurd chaff 
which had formed a good deal of the 
conversation on the previous afternoon, 
he tried to extract from it enough of 
truth to guide him, aiding himself by 
recalling little circumstances as well 
as words, for the one had often belied 
the other. 

He saw clearly that Fanny Trehearne 
might have said to him, ‘ I like you, 
but I do not love you — win me if you 
can ! ’ But it was like her to propose 
to ‘ flirt for a bet ’ — being at heart 
perhaps less of a flirt than she laugh- 
ingly admitted herself to be. But that 
was not the point .which chiefly inter- 
ested him. What he wished to know 
was, just how far that undefined liking 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


177 


for him extended. To speak in the 
common phrase, he did not ‘ know 
where he was ’ with her, and it seemed 
that he had no means of finding out. 
On the other hand, he knew very well 
indeed that he himself was badly in 
love. The symptoms were not to be 
mistaken, nor had he been in love 
so often already as to make him scepti- 
cal as to what he felt. He was more 
distrustful of the result than of the 
impulse. 

In his opinion Fanny was much too 
frank to be a flirt. Her directness was 
one of her principal charms, though he 
could not help suspecting that it must 
be one of her chief weapons. A little 
hesitation is often less deceptive than 
clear-eyed, outspoken truth. But Law- 
rence was no more able than most men 
of his age — or, indeed, of any age — 
to follow out a continuous train of 


178 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


thought where a woman was concerned. 
It is more often the woman’s person- 
ality that concerns us, unreasoning 
men, than the probable direction of 
her own reasoning about us. We do 
not make love to an argument, so to 
speak, nor to a set of ideas, nor to a 
preconceived opinion of our merits or 
demerits. We make love to our own 
idea of what the woman is — and the 
depth of our disillusionment is the 
measure of our sincerity, when love is 
gasping between the death-blow and 
the death. 

Moreover, what is called nowadays 
analysis of human nature, belongs in 
reality to transcendental thought. 
‘Transcendent’ is defined as designat- 
ing that which lies beyond the bounds 
of all possible experience. So far as 
we know, it is beyond those bounds to 
enter into the intelligence of our neigh- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


179 


hour, subjectively, to identify ourselves 
.with him and to see and understand 
the world with his eyes and mind. It 
follows that we are never sure of what 
we are doing when we attempt to set 
down exactly another man’s train of 
thought, and it follows also that few 
are willing to recognize the result as at 
all resembling the process of which 
they are conscious within themselves. 
On certain bases, all men can appeal 
subjectively to all men, and all women 
to all women. But, as between the 
sexes, all observation is objective and 
tentative, whether it be that of the 
author, condemned to analyze a 
woman’s character, or that of the man 
in love and attempting to understand 
the woman he loves. 

And further, if we could see — as it 
is pretended by some that we can see 
on paper — precisely what is taking 


i8o 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


place in the intelligence of those we 
meet in the world, our friends would be 
as unrecognizable to us as a dissected 
man is unrecognizable for a human 
being except in the eyes of a doctor. 
The soul, laid bare, dissected, and 
turned inside out, with real success,, 
would not be recognized by its dearest 
friend, were it ever so truthful a soul. 
We are all fundamentally and totally in- 
capable of expressing exactly what we 
feel, and as we have no means of con- 
veying truth without some sort of ex- 
pression, we are helpless and are all 
more or less hopelessly misunderstood 
— a fact to which, if we please, we 
may ascribe that variety which is pro- 
verbially said to be the charm of life. 
Doubtless, this is a literary heresy ; 
but it is a human truth a little above 
literature. 

Lawrence had never attempted to 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


l8l ' 


write a book, but as he sat on the slope 
above the Otter Cliff road, drawing 
trees, it did not occur to him to draw a 
picture of what he thought about the 
inside of each tree, instead of a repre- 
sentation of what he saw. But he 
made the usual fruitless attempt to 
understand the woman he loved, and 
to reason about her, and failed to do 
either, which is also usual. The con- 
clusion he reached was that he loved 
her, of which he had been aware before 
he had set himself to think it out. 

What he saw was a strong girl’s face 
with cool, inscrutable grey eyes that 
never took fire and gleamed, nor ever 
turned dull and vacant. Their unchang- 
ing steadiness contradicted the wayward 
speech, the sudden capricious confi- 
dence, even the gay laugh, sometimes. 
Lawrence had a lively impression that 
whatever Fanny said or did, she never 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


182 

meant but one thing, whatever that 
might be. And with this impression 
he was obliged to content himself. 

From the place where he sat, he had 
a glimpse between the trees of the 
road below. On the side towards him 
there was a little open bit of meadow^ 
where the gorge widened, and a low 
fence with a little ditch separated it 
from the highway. On the hillside, 
above this stretch of grass, the trees 
grew here and there, wide apart at 
first, and then by degrees more close 
together. He himself was seated just 
within the thick wood, at the edge of 
the first underbrush. 

Now and then, people passed along 
the road : a light buckboard drawn by 
a pair of bays and containing a smart- 
looking couple, with no groom behind ; 
a farmer’s wagon, long, hooded, and 
dusty, dragged at a disjointed trot by a 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


183 

broken-down grey horse ; a solitary 
rider, whose varnished shoes reflected 
the sunlight even to where Lawrence 
was sitting ; a couple of pedestrians ; 
a lad driving a cow ; and then another 
buckboard ; and so on. 

Lawrence was thinking of shutting up 
his book and climbing higher up the 
steep side of New Port Mountain — as 
the hill is called — in search of another 
study, when, glancing down through the 
trees, he saw three riders coming slowly 
along the road — two in front, and one 
at some distance behind — a lady and 
gentleman and then a groom. His 
eyes were good, and he would have 
known Fanny Trehearne’s figure and 
bearing even at a greater distance. 
She sat so straight — hands down, 
elbows in, head high, square in her 
saddle, yet flexible, and all moving 
with every movement of her Kentucky 


1 84 LOVE IN IDLENESS ' 

thoroughbred. They came nearer, and 
Lawrence saw them distinctly now. 
Brinsley was beside her. Lawrence 
laughed to himself at the idea that the 
man could ever have been in the Ma- 
rines. He sat the horse he rode much 
more like a Mexican or an Indian than 
like a sailor or a marine. Even at that 
distance Lawrence could not help ad- 
miring his really magnificent figure, for 
Brinsley’s perfections were showy and 
massed well afar off. 

The riders reached the point where 
the little meadow spread out on their 
left, and to Lawrence’s surprise, they 
halted and ‘ seemed to be consulting 
about something. They had turned 
towards him, and as they talked, he 
could see that Fanny looked across the 
meadow and up at the woods where he 
was sitting. It was of course utterly 
impossible that she should have known 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 1 85 

where he was, and it was almost in- 
credible that she should see him, seated 
low upon the ground in the deep shade, 
when she was only visible to him be- 
tween the stems of the trees. Never- 
theless, not caring to be discovered, 
he crouched down amongst the ferns 
and grasses, still keeping his eye on the 
couple in the road far below. 

Presently he saw Fanny turn her 
horse’s head, walk him to the other side 
of the road, and turn again, facing the 
meadow. She looked up and down 
the road once, saw that no one was 
coming, and put her mare at the fence. 
It was a low one, and the ditch on the 
outer side was neither broad nor deep. 
The thoroughbred cleared it with a 
contemptuously insignificant effort, and 
cantered a few strides forward into the 
grass, shaking her bony head almost 
between her knees as Fanny brought 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


1 86 

her to a stand and turned again. Brins- 
ley followed her on the big Hungarian 
horse he rode, — Mr. 'Frehearne’s horse, 

— jumping the fence and ditch, and 
taking them again almost immediately, 
to wait for Fanny on the other side in 
the road. She followed again, and 
pulled up by his side. But they did 
not ride on at once. They seemed to 
be discussing some point connected 
with the place, for they pointed here 
and there with their hands as they 
spoke. Fanny reined in her mare and 
backed a little, as though she were going 
to jump again. The animal seemed 
nervous, stamping and pawing, and 
laying back her small ears. 

A hundred yards or more in the di- 
rection from which they had come the 
road made a short bend round the 
foot of the spur of the hill, known as ^ 
Pickett’s. Just as Fanny put the mare 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


87 


at the fence a third time, a coach and 
four turned the corner of the road at 
a smart pace, leaders cantering and 
wheelers at a long trot. 

Seeing three horses apparently halt- 
ing in the way, some one in the coach 
sent a terrific and discordant blast 
from a post-horn ringing along the road 
as a warning. At that moment Fanny’s 
mare was rising at the bars. She cleared 
them as easily as ever, but on reaching 
the ground instantly bolted across the 
grass, head down, ears back, heels fly- 
ing. It all happened in a moment. 
The two men, Brinsley and groom, 
knew too much to scare the thorough- 
bred by a pursuit, and confident in 
Fanny’s good riding, sat motionless on 
their horses in the road, after drawing 
away enough to let the coach pass. 

The idiot with the horn continued to 
blow fiercely, and the big vehicle came 


.LOVE IN IDLENESS 


1 88 

swinging along at a great rate, with 
clattering of hoofs, for the road was 
hard and dry, baked after a recent 
rain — and with jingling of harness and 
sound of voices. The mare grew more 
and more frightened, and tore up the 
hillside like a flash, directly away from 
the noise. The young girl was a first- 
rate rider and knew the fearful danger, 
if she should be carried at such a pace 
amongst the trees. But her strength, 
great as it was, for a woman, was 
not able to produce the slightest impres- 
sion upon the terrified creature she rode. 

Lawrence knew nothing of riding, 
but the imminent peril of the woman 
he loved was clear to him in a moment. 
He had a horrible vision of the wild- 
eyed mare tearing straight towards 
him through the trees — wide apart at 
first, and, then dangerously near to- 
gether. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


89 


On they came, the thoroughbred 
swerving violently at one stem after 
another — the young girl’s strong figure 
swaying to her balance at each head- 
long movement. He could see her 
set face, pale under the tan, and he 
could see the desperate exertion of 
her strength. He sprang forward and 
ran down between the trees at the 
top of his speed. 


CHAPTER X. 


There is nothing equal to the abso- 
lute fearlessness of a naturally brave 
man who has no experience of the risk 
he runs and is bent on saving the life of 
the woman he loves. Louis Lawrence 
remembered afterwards what he had 
done and how he had done it, but he 
was unconscious of what he was doing 
at the time. 

He rushed down the hill between the 
closer trees, and with utter recklessness 
sprang at the bridle as the infuriated 
mare dashed past him. Grasping snaf- 
fle and curb — tight drawn as they 
were — in both hands, he threw all his 
light weight upon them and allowed 
himself to be dragged along 4;he ground 
between the trees at the imminent risk 


190 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 




191 


of his life — a. risk so terrible that 
Fanny Trehearne turned paler for him 
than for her own danger. In half a 
dozen more strides they might both 
have been killed. But the mare 
stopped, quivering, tried to rear, but 
could not lift Lawrence far from the 
ground nor shake off his desperate 
hold, plunged once and again, and 
then stood quite still, trembling vio- 
lently. Lawrence scrambled to his 
feet, still holding the bridle, and 
promptly placed himself in front of the 
mare. 

For one breathless instant, Lawrence 
looked into Fanny’s face, and neither 
spoke nor moved. Both were still very 
pale. Then the young girl slipped off, 
the reins in her hand. 

“That was uncommonly well done,” 
she said, with great calm. “ You’ve 
saved my life.” 


192 


LOVE-IN IDLENESS 


She no longer looked at him while 
she spoke, but patted and stroked the 
thoroughbred, looking her over with a 
critical eye. 

“Oh — that’s all right,” answered 
Lawrence, “Don’t mention it ! ” 

He laughed nervously, still panting 
from his violent exertion. Fanny her- 
self was not out of breath, but the colour 
did not come back to her sunburnt 
cheeks at once, and her hand was 
hardly steady yet. She did not laugh 
with Lawrence, nor even smile, but 
she looked long into his eyes. 

“ I may not mention it, but I shan’t 
forget it,” she said slowly. 

“It’s one to me, isn’t it?” asked 
Lawrence, who, in reality, was by far 
the cooler and more collected of the 
two. 

“How do you mean?” enquired 
Fanny, knitting her brows half-angrily. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


93 


“One to me — in our game, you 
know,” said the young fellow. “ The 
game we agreed to play, yesterday.” 

“ Yes — it’s one to you. By the bye 
— you’re not hurt anywhere, are you ? ” 

She looked him over, as she had 
looked over her mare, with the same 
critical glance. His clothes were a 
little torn, here and there, being but 
light summer things, and his hat had 
disappeared, but it was tolerably clear 
that he was in no way injured. 

“ Oh, I’m all right,” he answered 
cheerfully. “ I should think you’d feel 
badly shaken, though,” he added, with 
sudden anxiety. 

“ Not at all,” said Fanny, determined 
to show no more emotion or excite- 
ment than he. “ It was a case of 
sitting still — neck or nothing. It’s 
nothing, as it happens.” 

At that moment Brinsley appeared, 

L. 


194 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


riding slowly through the trees, for fear 
of frightening the mare again. 

“ Are you hurt? ” he shouted. 

Fanny looked round, saw him, and 
shook her head, with a smile. Brinsley 
trotted up and sprang from his horse. 

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” he 
asked again. 

“ Not in the least ! ” 

“ Thank God ! ” ejaculated Brinsley, 
with emphasis. 

“You’d better thank Mr. Lawrence, 
too,” observed Fanny, quietly. “ He 
caught her going at a gallop, and hung 
on and was dragged. I don’t remem- 
ber ever seeing anything quite so 
plucky.” 

Brinsley looked coldly at his rival, 
and his beady eyes seemed nearer to- 
gether than usual when he spoke to 
him. 

“ I think you’re quite as much to be 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


195 


congratulated as Miss Trehearne,” he 
said. 

‘‘ Thanks.” 

“ We’d better be getting down to the 
road again,” said Fanny. “You can 
lead the mare and your own horse, too, 
Mr. Brinsley. She’s quiet enough 
now, and I’ve all I can do to walk in 
these things.” 

Brinsley took the mare’s bridle over 
her head and led the way with the two 
horses. 

“ Aren’t you coming? ” asked Fanny, 
seeing that Lawrence did not follow. 

* “Thanks — no,” he answered. “I 
must find my hat, in the first place.” 

Brinsley looked over his shoulder, 
and saw the two hanging back. ' He 
stopped a moment, turning, and laying 
one hand on the mare’s nose. 

“You must be shaken, Mr. Law- 
rence,” he said. “ Why don’t you take 


96 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


the groom’s horse and ride home with 
us?” 

“ I can’t ride,” answered the younger 
man, loud enough for Brinsley to hear 
him. ‘‘ And you know it perfectly 
well,” he added under his breath. 

Fanny frowned, but took no further 
notice of the remark. 

“ Good-bye,” she said, holding out 
her hand to Lawrence. “ Come home 
as soon as you can, won’t you? ” 

“ Oh yes — that is, I think I’ll just 
see you take that fence again, and then 
I want to get a little higher up the hill 
and do another bit of a sketch. Then 
I’ll come home. There’s no hurry, is 
there?” 

“ Don’t show off,” said Fanny, se- 
verely. “ It isn’t pretty. Good-bye.” 

She walked fast and overtook Brins- 
ley in a few moments. At the foot of the 
hill he prepared to mount her, leaving 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


197 


his own horse to the groom. Then a 
thing happened which he was never ^ble 
to explain, though he was an expert in 
the field and no one could mount a 
lady better than he, of all Fanny’s ac- 
quaintances. He bent his knee and 
held out his hand and stiffened his 
back and made the necessary effort 
just at the right moment, as he very 
well knew. But for some inexplicable 
reason Fanny did not reach the saddle, 
nor anywhere near" it, and she slipped 
and would certainly have fallen if he 
had not caught her with his other hand 
and held her on her feet. 

“How awkward you are ! ” she ex- 
claimed viciously, with a little stamp. 
“ Let me get on alone ! ” 

And thereupon, to his astonishment 
and mortification, she pushed him aside, 
set her foot in the stirrup, — for she was 
very tall and could do it easily, — and 


198 LOVE IN IDLENESS 

was up in a flash. Lawrence, looking 
down' at them from the edge of the 
woods, saw what happened, and so did 
Stebbins, the groom, who grinned in 
silence. He hated Brinsley, and it is 
a bad sign when a good servant hates 
his master’s guest. Lawrence felt that 
in addition to scoring one in the 
game, he was avenged on his enemy 
for the latter’s taunting invitation to 
ride. 

“ I think I may count that, and mark 
two. I’m sure she did it on pur- 
pose,” he said audibly to himself. 

Before Brinsley was mounted, Fanny 
was over the fence with her mare and 
waiting for him in the road. 

“ Oh, come along 1 ” she cried. 
“ Don’t be all day getting on ! ” 

“You needn’t be so tremendously 
rough on a fellow,” said Brinsley, as his 
horse landed in the road. “ It wasn’t 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 1 99 

my fault that I wasn’t waiting for a 
runaway under the trees up there.” 

“ Yes it was ! Everything’s your 
fault,” answered Fanny, emphatically. 
‘‘ No — you needn’t play Orlando 
Furioso and make papa’s old rock- 
ing-horse waltz like that. My mare’s 
got to walk a mile, at least, for her 
nerves.” 

It didn’t require Brinsley’s great nat- 
ural penetration to tell him that Miss 
Fanny Trehearne was in the very worst 
of tempers — even to the point of un- 
fairly calling her papa’s sturdy Hunga- 
rian bad names. But he could not at 
all see why she should be so angry. It 
had certainly been her fault if he had 
failed to put her neatly in the saddle. 
^But her ill-humour did not frighten 
him in the least, though he was very 
quiet for several minutes after she had 
last spoken. 


200 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ It’s not wildly gay to ride with peo- 
ple who don’t talk,” observed Fanny. 

“ I was trying to think of something 
appropriate to say,” answered Brinsley. 
“ But you’re in such an awful rage — ” 
‘‘ Am I ? I didn’t know it. What 
makes you think so ? ” 

“ What nerves you’ve got ! ” ex- 
claimed Brinsley, in a tone of admira- 
tion. 

“ I haven’t any nerves at all.” 

“ I mean good nerves.” 

“ I tell you I haven’t any nerves. 
Why do you talk about nerves? They’re 
not amusing things to have, are they? ” 
“ Well — in point of humour — I 
didn’t say they were.’* 

I asked you to say something 
amusing, and you began talking about 
nerves,” said Fanny, in explanation. 

“ I’m not in luck to-day,” said Brins- 
ley, after a pause. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


201 


“ No — you’re not,” was the answer ; 
but she did not vouchsafe him a glance. 

“ I wish you’d like me,” he said 
boldly. 

I do — at a certain distance. You 
look well in the landscape — and you 
know it.” 

“ Upon my word ! ” Brinsley laughed 
roughly, and looked between his horse’s 
ears. 

“ Upon your word — what ? ” 

I never had anything said to me 
quite equal to that, Miss Trehearne.” 

“ No ? I’m surprised. Perhaps you 
haven’t known the right sort of people. 
You must find the truth refreshing.” 

Brinsley waited a few moments be- 
fore speaking, and then, turning his 
head, looked at her with great earnest- 
ness. 

“I wish you’d tell me why you’ve 
taken such a sudden dislike to me,” he 
said in a low voice. 


202 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Why are you so anxious to know, 
Mr. Brinsley?” asked Fanny, meeting 
his eyes quietly. 

Because I believe that somebody 
has been saying disagreeable things 
about me to you,” he answered. “ If 
that’s the case, it would be fair to give 
me a chance, you know.” 

“ Nobody’s been talking against you. 
You’ve talked against yourself. Be- 
sides,” she added,, her face suddenly 
clearing, “ it’s quite absurd to make 
such a fuss about nothing ! I’m only 
angry about nothing at all. It’s my 
way, you know. You mustn’t mind. 
I’ll get over it before we’re at home, 
and then I’ll go off, and my cousins will 
give you lots of weak tea and flattery.” 

Brinsley, who was clever at most 
things, was not good at talking nor at un- 
derstanding a woman’s moods, and he 
felt himself at so great a disadvantage 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


203 


that he slipped into an inane conversa- 
tion about people and parties without 
succeeding in finding out what he wished 
to know. If he had ever conceived 
any mad hope of winning Fanny’s 
affections, he abandoned it then and 
there. He was still further handi- 
capped, had Fanny known it, by the 
desperate state of his own affairs at 
that moment ; and if she had known 
something of his reflexions, she might 
have pitied him a little — what she 
might have thought, if she had guessed 
the remainder, is hard to guess, for he 
had a very curious scheme in his mind 
for improving his finances. He had 
been playing high for some time, had 
lost steadily, and was at the end of his 
present resources, which, with him, 
meant that he was at the end of all he 
had in the world. 

He was not by any means inclined 


204 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


to give up the pleasant intimacy he had 
formed and fostered with the three 
Miss Miners, nor the attendant luxuries 
which he had gained with it, and the 
introduction to Bar Harbour society, 
which meant good society elsewhere. 
But he felt that he had no choice, since 
the cards went against him. He was 
not a sharper. He played fair, for the 
sake of the enjoyment of the thing. It 
was his one great passion. When he 
was in luck he won enough for his ex- 
travagant needs, for he always played 
high, on principle. But when fortune 
foiled him, he had other talents of a 
more curious description, by the exer- 
cise of which to replenish his purse — 
talents, too, which he had exercised in 
America for a long time. His happy 
hunting-ground was really London, 
which accounted for his evident and 
almost extraordinary familiarity with its 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


205 


ways. There are indeed few places in 
the world where a man may follow a 
doubtful occupation more freely and 
more successfully. 

Before they reached the Trehearnes’ 
house, Brinsley had made up his mind 
that he must drink his last cup of tea 
with the three Miss Miners on that dhy. 
or very soon afterwards, unless he were 
to be even more fortunate in his under- 
taking than he dared to expect. The 
immediate consequence was an affecta- 
tion of a sad and stately manner towards 
Fanny as he helped her off her mare at 
the door. 

‘‘ Fm afraid this has been our last 
ride,” he said, in a subdued voice. 

“ What ? Oh — ^ The Last Ride ’ — 
Browning — I remember,” answered 
Fanny. 

“No — I wasn’t alluding to Brown- 
ing. Fm going away very soon.” 


2o6 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


Fanny Stared at him in some surprise. 

“ Oh ! Are you? I am very sorry.” 
She spoke cheerfully, and led the way 
into the house, Brinsley following her, 
with a dejected air. “ You’ll probably 
find my cousins in the library,” she 
added. “ I’m going to take off my 
hat — it’s so hot.” 

The three Miss Miners were assem- 
bled, as usual at that hour, and greeted 
Brinsley effusively. Not wishing to be 
anticipated by Fanny in telling a story 
altogether to Lawrence’s credit, he 
began to tell the three ladies of what 
had happened during the ride. He 
was very careful to explain that he had 
of course not dared to follow the run- 
away, lest he should have made matters 
much worse. 

“ It’s quite dreadful,” cried Miss Cor- 
delia, on hearing of Fanny’s narrow 
escape. “You should never have let 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


207 


her jump the fence at all. What do 
people do such mad things for ! ” 

If anything happened to the child, 
we might as well kill ourselves,” said 
Elizabeth. “ It’s too dreadful to think 
of!” 

“ Well,” answered Brinsley, ‘^nothing 
has happened, you see. I’ve brought 
Miss Trehearne safe home, though I 
hadn’t the good fortune to be the man 
who stopped her horse. You see,” he 
added, smiling, ‘‘ I want all the credit 
you can spare from Mr. Lawrence. I’m 
afraid there’s not much to be got, 
though. He’s had the lion’s share.” 

“ And where is he ? ” asked Augusta, 
who felt more sympathy for the artist 
than the others. 

“ Oh — he’ll come back. He can’t 
ride, you know, so he had to walk, poor 
fellow ! He’d been pretty badly shaken, 
too, and he’s not strong. I’m sure.” 


208 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ You wouldn’t have called him weak 
if you’d seen him hanging on while the 
mare dragged him,” said Fanny, who 
had entered unnoticed. 

“ Oh, that’s only strength in the 
hands ! ” said Brinsley, in a deprecia- 
tive tone, and conscious of his own 
splendid proportions. 

“ Well, then, he’s strong in the hands, 
that’s all,” retorted Fanny. “ Please, 
some tea, Elizabeth dear — I’m half 
dead.” 

The three Miss Miners did their best 
to console Brinsley for Fanny’s con- 
tinued ill-treatment of him, but they 
did not succeed in lifting the cloud from 
his brow. At last he confessed that he 
was expecting to leave Bar Harbour at 
any moment. 


CHAPTER XL 


, The:re were to be fireworks that 
evening at the Canoe Club on the farther 
side of Bar Island — magnificent fire- 
works, it was said, which it would be 
well worth while to see. The night 
was calm and clear, and the moon, 
being near the last quarter, would not 
rise until everything was over. 

We’ll go in skiffs,” said Fanny. 
“ When we’re tired of each other, we 
can change about, you know. Mr. 
Lawrence can take one of us and Mr. 
Brinsley another, and the other two 
must take one of the men from the 
landing. I ordered the boats this 
morning when I was out.” 

The three Miss Miners looked con- 
sciously at one another, mutely won- 
209 


210 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


dering how they were to divide Mr. 
Brinsley amongst them, and wishing 
that they had consulted together in 
private before the moment for decision 
had come. But no one suggested 
that, as there were only four ladies-, 
each of the men could very easily take 
two in a boat. 

“We might toss up to see who shall 
take whom,” suggested Brinsley, who 
had been unusually silent during the 
greater part of dinner. 

“ In how many ways can you arrange 
six people in couples?” asked Fanny. 

Nobody succeeded in solving the 
question, of course. Even Elizabeth 
Miner, who was considered the clever 
member, gave it up in despair. 

“ Never mind ! ” said Fanny. “We’ll 
see how it turns out when we get down 
to the landing-stage. These things 
always arrange themselves.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


2II 


To the surprise of every one except 
Fanny herself, the arrangement turned 
out to be such that she and Miss Cor- 
delia went together in the skiff pulled 
by the sailor, while Brinsley and Law- 
rence each took one of the other Miss 
Miners. 

“We’ll change by and by,” said 
Fanny, as her boat shoved off first to 
show the way. “ Keep close to us in 
the crowd when we get over.” 

The distance from the landing, across 
the harbour, through the channel be- 
tween Bar Island and Sheep Porcupine 
to the Canoe Club, is little over half a 
mile ; but at night, amidst a crowd of 
steamers, large and small, row-boats, 
canoes, and sail-boats, — the latter all 
outside the channel, — it took twenty 
minutes to reach the place where the 
fireworks were to be. 

Fanny leaned back beside her 


212 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


cousin, and watched the lights in si- 
lence. Yellow, green, and red, they 
streamed across the brilliant black 
water in every direction, the yellow 
rays fixed or moving but slowly, the 
others gliding along swiftly above their 
own reflection, as the paddle steamers 
thrashed their way through the still 
sea. To left and right the shadowy 
islands loomed, darkly against the black 
sky, outlined by the stars. The warm 
damp air lifted the coolness from the 
water in little puffs, as the skiff slipped 
along. Now and then, in the gloom, 
a boat showed dimly alongside, and 
the laughing voices of girls and boys 
told how near it passed, a mere float- 
ing dimness upon blackness. The 
stroke of light sculls swished and tinkled 
with the laughter. The soft mysteri- 
ous charm of tlie summer dark was 
breathed upon land and water — the 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


213 


distant lights were love-dreaming eyes, 
and each time, as the oars dipped, 
swept and rose, the gentle sound was 
like a stolen kiss. 

Then, suddenly, with a wild scream- 
ing rush, a rocket shot up into the 
night, splitting the sky with a scar of 
fire. The burning point of it lingered 
a moment overhead, then cracked into 
little stars that shed a soft glow through 
the gloom, and fell in a swift shower 
of sparks. Then all was hushed again, 
and the red and green lights moved 
quickly over the water, hither and 
thither. 

Close to the shore of the island the 
skiff ran round the point into the 
shallow water along the beach, and all 
at once in the distance the festooned 
lanterns of the Canoe Club came into 
view, so bright that one could distin- 
guish the branches of the spruces in the 


214 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


red and yellow glare, and the moving 
crowd of people on the little landing- 
stage and below, before the club- 
house. And some two hundred yards 
out the lights began again, gleaming 
from hundreds of boats and little ves- 
sels of all rigs and builds. Between 
these seaward lights and those on land 
a deep black void stretched away up 
Frenchman’s Bay. 

Miss Cordelia started nervously at 
the rockets, but said nothing. Fanny 
sat beside her in silence. The sailor, 
only visible distinctly when the lights 
were behind him, pulled softly and 
steadily, glancing over his shoulder 
every now and then to see that the 
way was clear. The other skiffs kept 
near, both Brinsley and Lawrence 
being keenly on the lookout for a 
change. Now and then Fanny could 
hear them talking. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


215 


I wonder why one voice should 
attract one and another should be dis- 
agreeable,” she said at last, in a medi- 
tative tone. 

“I was thinking of the same thing,” 
answered Cordelia, thoughtfully. 

“ Yes,” said Fanny, absently. Of 
course you were,” she added, a moment 
later. “I mean — ” She paused. “Poor 
dear ! ” she exclaimed at last, stroking 
her cousin’s elderly hand in the dark. 
“ I’m so sorry ! ” 

“Thank you, dear,” answered Miss 
Miner, simply and gratefully. 

It was little enough, but little as it 
was it made them both more silent than 
ever. With the boatman close before 
them, it was impossible to talk of what 
was in their thoughts. Fanny, for her 
part, was glad of it. She had under- 
stood her old-maid cousin since the 
night when Cordelia had broken down 


2I6 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


and laughed and cried in the* garden, 
and she knew how little there could be 
to say. But Cordelia did not under- 
stand Fanny in the least. It was a 
marvel to her that any one should pre- 
fer Lawrence to Brinsley — almost as 
great a marvel as that she herself, in 
her sober middle age, should have felt 
what she knew was love and believed 
to be passion. 

And now, Brinsley was going, and it 
was over. He would never come back, 
and she should never see him again — 
she was sure of that. She was only an 
old maid ; a middle-aged gentlewoman 
who had never possessed any great 
attraction for anybody ; who had always 
been more or less poor and unhappy, 
though of the best and living amongst 
the best ; whose few pleasures had 
come to her unexpectedly, like rare 
gleams of pale sunshine on a very long 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


217 


rainy day ; who had looked for little 
and had got next to nothing out of life, 
save the crumbs of enjoyment from the 
feast of rich relations, like the Tre- 
hearnes — a woman who had known 
something more grievous than sorrow 
and worse than violent grief, trudging 
through life in the leaden cowl of many 
limitations — the leaden cowl of that 
most innocent of all hypocrites, of her, 
or of him, who knows the daily burden 
of keeping up appearances on next to 
nothing, and of doctoring poor little 
illusions through a .feeble existence, 
worth having because they represent 
all that there is to have. 

She had been wounded by one of 
those arrows shot in the dark which hit 
hearts unawares and unaimed ; and now 
that the shaft was suddenly drawn out, 
the heart’s blood followed it and the 
nerves quivered where it had been. It 


2I8 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


was only one of the little tragedies 
which no one sees, few guess at, and 
nothing can hinder. But Fanny Tre- 
hearne felt that it was beside her, there 
in the little boat, while she watched 
the pretty fireworks, and she was sorry 
and did what she could to soothe the 
pain. 

“ Let’s change, now,” she said at last, 
just as the glow of a multitude of col- 
oured fires died away on the water. 
“ You take Mr. Brinsley, and I’ll take 
Mr. Lawrence.” 

As she spoke, she gave her cousin’s 
hand a little squeeze of sympathy, and 
heard the small sigh of satisfaction that 
answered the proposal. The rearrange- 
ment was effected in a few moments, 
the men holding the boats together by 
the gunwales while the ladies stepped 
from one into the other. 

“ Pull away,” said Fanny, authorita- 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


219 


lively, as soon as Lawrence had shoved 
off. “ Let’s, get out of this ! I’ll steer, 
so you needn’t bother about running 
into things.” 

Fairly seated in a boat, with the sculls 
shipped, and some one at the tiller lines, 
Lawrence could get along tolerably well, 
for he knew just enough not to catch a 
crab in smooth water, so long as he 
was not obliged to turn his head. But 
if he had to look over his shoulder, 
something was certain to happen, which 
was natural, considering that when he 
attempted to feather at all, he did it 
the wrong way. 

“ You’re stronger than anybody would 
think,” observed Fanny, as she saw how 
quickly the skiff moved. ‘‘You might 
do things quite decently, if you’d only 
take the trouble to learn.” 

“Oh no! I’m a born duffer,” 
laughed Lawrence. “ Besides, I couldn’t 


220 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


row long like this. I couldn’t keep it 
up.” 

They were just in front of the club- 
house now ; and a score of rockets 
went up together, with a rushing and 
a crackling and a gleaming, as they 
soared and burst, and at last fell sput- 
tering in the water all around the skiff. 
Lawrence had rested on his sculls to 
watch the sight. 

“ Pull away 1 ” said Fanny. “ We’ll 
get under the foot-bridge by the land- 
ing. There’s water enough there, and 
we can see everything.” 

Lawrence obeyed, and pulled as hard 
as he could. 

“ So your friend Mr. Brinsley is going 
away,” observed the young girl, sud- 
denly. 

“ My friend 1 I like that ! As though 
I had brought him in my pocket.” 

“ I’m very glad that he’s going, at 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


221 


all events,” said Fanny, without heed- 
ing his remark. “ I’m not fond of him 
any more.” 

“ I hope you never were — fond of 
him.” 

“Oh yes, I was — but I’m thankful 
to say that it’s over. Of all the ineffable 
cads ! I could have killed him to-day ! ” 

“By the bye,” said Lawrence, “when 
he was mounting you — didn’t you do 
that on purpose ? ” 

“ Of course. And then I called him 
awkward. It was so nice ! It did me 
good.” 

“ Pure spite, I suppose. You couldn’t 
have had any particular reason for 
doing it, could you ? ” 

“ Oh dear, no ! What reason could 
I have? It wasn’t his fault that the 
mare ran away, though I told him it 
was.” 

“ That’s interesting,” observed Law- 


222 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


rence. “ Do you often do things out 
of pure spite? ” 

“Constantly — without any reason 
at all ! ” Fanny laughed. 

“ Perhaps you’ll marry out of spite, 
some day,” said Lawrence, calmly. 
“ Women often do, they say, though I 
never could understand why.” 

“ I daresay I shall. I’m quite capable 
of it. And shouldn’t I be just horrid 
afterwards ! ” 

“ I like you when you’re horrid, as 
you call it. I didn’t at first. You’ve 
given my sense of humour a chance to 
grow since I’ve been here. I say. Miss 
Trehearne — ” He stopped. 

“ What do you say ? It isn’t particu- 
larly polite to begin in that way, is it? 
I suppose it’s English.” 

“ Oh, bother the English ! And I 
apologize for being slangy. It’s so 
dark that I can’t see you frown. I 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


223 


meant to say, if you ever marry out of 
spite, and want to be particularly horrid 
afterwards, it wouldn’t be a bad idea 
to marry me, for I don’t mind that sort 
of thing a bit, you know.” 

“That’s a singular offer!” laughed 
Fanny, leaning far back, and playing 
with the tiller lines in the glow of the 
Bengal lights. 

“ It’s genuine of its kind,” answered 
the young man. “ Of course it isn’t a 
sure thing, exactly,” he added reflec- 
tively, “ because it depends on your 
happening to be in the spiteful humour. 
But, as you say that often happens — ” 

“ Well, go on I ” 

“ I thought you might feel spiteful 
enough to accept this evening,” con- 
cluded Lawrence. 

“ Take care — I might, you know — 
you’re in danger I ” She was still 
laughing. 


224 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ Don’t mind me, you know ! I 
could stand it, I believe.” 

“ You’re awfully amusing — some- 
times, Mr. Lawrence.” 

“ Meaning now ? ” enquired the artist, 
resting on his sculls, for they were under 
the shadow of the bridge. 

“ I can’t see your face distinctly,” 
answered Fanny. “ So much depends 
on the expression. But I think — ” 
What do you think ? That it’s 
awfully amusing of me to offer to be 
married as a sacrifice to your spite ? ” 

“ It’s amusing anyway.” 

“ A formal proposal would be, you 
mean?” asked Lawrence. Then he 
laughed oddly. 

“ I hate formality,” answered Fanny. 
“ That is, in earnest, you know. It’s 
so disgusting when a man comes with 
his gloves buttoned and sits on the 
edge of a chair and says — ” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


225 


“ And says what? ” 

“ Oh — you know the sort of thing. 
You must have done it scores of times.” 

“What? Proposed and been re- 
fused ? You’re complimentary, at all 
events. I’ve a great mind to let you 
be the first, just — well — how shall I 
say? Just to associate you with a 
novel sensation.” 

“ I might disappoint you,” said 
Fanny, demurely. “ I told you so be- 
fore. Just think, if I were to say ‘ yes,’ 
you’d be most dreadfully caught. You’d 
have to eat humble pie and beg off, 
and say that you hadn’t meant it.” 

“ Oh no ! ” laughed the young man. 
“ You’d break it off in a week, and 
then it would be all right.” 

“ Are you going to be rude ? Or are 
you, already? I’m not quite sure.” 

“ Neither. Of course you’d break 
it off, if we had an agreement to that 
effect.” 


226 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


“ You don’t make any allowance for 
my spitefulness. It would be just like 
me to hold you to your engagement. 
Of course you wouldn’t live long. We 
should be sure to fight.” 

“Oh — sure,” assented Lawrence. 
“That is, if you call this fighting.” 

“ It would be worse than this. But 
why don’t you try? I’m dying to re- 
fuse you. I’m just in the humour.” 

“ Why ! I thought you said there was 
danger ! If I’d known there wasn’t — 
by the bye, this counts in the game, 
doesn’t it? ” 

“There isn’t anything to count, yet,” 
said Fanny. “ Look at those fiery fish 
— aren’t they pretty? See how they 
squirm about, and fizzle, and behave 
like mad things ! Oh, I never saw 
anything so pretty as that ! ” 

“ Yes. If one must have an inter- 
ruption, they do as well as anything.” 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


227 


“You weren’t talking very cohe- 
rently, I believe,” said the young girl, 
turning her head to watch the fireworks. 
“ And you’ve made me miss lots of 
pretty things. I’m sure. Oh — they’ve 
gone out. already ! How dark it seems, 
all at once ! What were you asking? 
Whether this counted in the game? 
Of course it counts. Everything does. 
But I don’t exactly see how — ” 

She stopped and looked towards him 
in the dim gloom of the shadow under 
the bridge. But Lawrence did not 
speak. He looked over the side of 
the boat, softly slapping the black 
water with the blade of his scull. 

“Why don’t you go on?” asked 
Fanny, tapping the boards under her 
foot to attract his attention. 

“ I was thinking over the proper 
words,” answered Lawrence. “ How 
does one make a formal proposal of 


228 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


marriage ? I never did such a thing in 
my life.” 

“ An informal one would do for fun.” 

“ I never did that, either.” 

“ Never? ” 

“Never.” 

“ Really ? Swear it, as they say on 
the stage.” Fanny laughed softly. 

“ Oh, by Jove, yes ! ” answered Law- 
rence, promptly. “ I ’ll swear to that 
by anything you please.” 

“Well — you’ll have to do it some 
day, so you’d better practise at once,” 
suggested Fanny. 

Lawrence did not notice that there 
was a sort of little relief in her tone. 

“ I suppose one says, ‘ My angel, 
will you be mine?’” he said. “That 
sounds like some book or other.” 

“It might do,” answered Fanny, 
meditatively. “ You ought to throw a 
little more expression into the tone. 


LOVE IN IDLENESS 


229 


Besides, I’m not an angel, whatever 
the girl in the book may have been. 
On the whole — no — it’s a little too 
effusive. Angel — you know. It’s such 
nonsense ! Try something else ; but 
put lots of expression into it.” 

Does one get down- on one’s 
knees?” enquired Lawrence. 

“ Oh no ; I don’t believe it’s neces- 
sary. Besides, you’d upset the boat.” 

“ All right — here goes ! My dear 
Miss Trehearne, will you — ” 

“ Yes. That’s it. Go on. The 
quaver in the voice is rather well done. 
‘Will you—’ What?” 

“Will you marry me?” 

“Yes, Mr. Lawrence, I will.” 

There was a short pause, during 
which a number of fiery fish were sent 
off again, and squirmed and wriggled 
and fizzled their burning little lives 
away in the water. But neither of the 
young people looked at them. 


230 


LOVE IN I13LENESS 


You rather took my breath away,” 
said Lawrence, with a change of tone. 

Did I do it all right?” » 

‘‘ Oh — (jiiite right,” answered hkanny, 
thoughtfully. 

Immediately after the words I.aw- 
rence heard a little sigh. Then Fanny 
heard one, too. 

“ You didn’t happen to be in earnest, 
did you ? ” she asked suddenly, in a 
low, soft voice. 

“ Well — I didn’t mean — that I 
meant — you know we agreed to play 
a game — ” 

“ I know we did — but — were you 
in earnest?” 

“Yes — but, of course — Oh, this 
isn’t fair. Miss Trehearne ! ” 

“ Yes, it is. I said ‘ yes,’ didn’t I ? ” 

“ Certainly, but — ” 

“ 'Fhere’s no ‘ but.’ I hap])ened to 
be in earnest, too — that’s all. I’ve 
game.” 




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